UC-NRLF 


B    4    IDA    ILdI 


SELECTIONS 


V 


FROM 


WALTER    PATER 


Edited  with  Introduction  and  Notes 

BY 

EDWARD    EVERETT   HALE,   Jr.,    Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Rhetonc  and  Logic  in  Union  College 


m. 


NEW   YORK 
HENRY   HOLT   AND   COMPANY 


Copyright,  1901, 

By 

HENRY   HOLT  &  CO. 


PREFACE.  //^cW 

On  first  thinking  of  this  book  my  main  princi- 
ples were  merely  to  omit  the  passage  on  "  La 
Giaconda  "  and  to  say  nothing  of  Pater's  style.  But 
I  soon  found  that  however  well  those  views  would 
do  in  a  negative  way,  there  had  to  be  something 
more  positive  to  begin  on.  I  tried,  therefore,  in  this 
selection  to  put  together  essays  that  would  be 
characteristic  in  ideas  and  style,  and  which  would 
also  illustrate  the  very  broad  range  of  Pater's  inter- 
ests, as  well  as  the  different  periods  of  his  life. 
Keeping  close  to  these  ideas  necessitated  many 
omissions  which  I  regret, —  one  should  really  read 
all  Pater.  The  selection  will,  however,  give  an 
idea  of  his  very  diverse  work;  there  are  essays  in 
general,  criticism,  poetry,  philosophy,  painting, 
sculpture,  architecture,  as  well  as  several  of  those 
studies  in  criticism  which  he  put  in  the  form  of 
fiction.  They  all  come  from  what  may  be  called  the 
regular  collections ;  the  essays  from  the  "  Guard- 
ian "  are  mostly  ephemeral  comment  on  books  that 
were  of  interest  often  for  the  moment  only,  and 
except  for  those  on  Amiel  and  English  literature 
have  a  negative  rather  than  a  positive  interest. 

iii 

267344 


IV 


PREFACE 


The  hitrodi^-'  ^  .'  Hows  a  course  which  is  of  the 
first  necessity  in  a  study  of  Pater,  if  necessary  only 
at  first ;  it  is  simply  an  attempt  to  state  what  Pater's 
ideas  and  opinions  were  without  criticism  or  com- 
ment. Pater  himself  advises  a  different  course, 
but  something  of  this  sort  is  necessary  as  a  begin- 
ning-. It  may  seem  that  there  should  be  more  at- 
tempt to  correlate  ideas  and  actions,  to  explain 
Pater's  books  by  his  life.  But  in  this  case  the  books 
are  the  main  thing:  one  must  know  them  thor- 
oughly and  one  will  then  have  the  best  of  the  man 
and  may  go  farther  or  not. 

The  notes  like  the  rest  of  the  book  omit  a  good 
deal  which  may  be  expected.  They  give  very  little 
information  about  people  and  facts.  That  sort  of 
thing  a  student  can  generally  get  for  himself.  Pater 
will  not  be  read  by  schoolboys.  There  are,  how- 
ever, a  good  many  things  that  one  cannot  readily 
get  for  oneself.  Thus  it  is  important  that  we  should 
have  constant  comparison  with  work  of  Pater's 
not  in  this  book.  I  have  not  been  able  to  do  quite 
as  much  in  the  way  of  reference  to  other  work  as  1 
should  like,  but  the  typical  comparisons  are  gener- 
ally noted.  Allusions  of  one  kind  had  to  be  explained 
—  too  fully  for  a  good  many  readers,  doubtless  — i- 
namely  those  to  pictures,  statues,  poems.  Thus  ii'x 
the  essay  on  Wordsworth  it  was  necessary  to  indi- 
cate the  source  of  the  many  quotations  and  allu- 
sions, for  it  is  only  by  reading  them  in  Wordsworth 


PREFACE  V 

that  one  can  understand  how  closely  that  essay  fol- 
lows its  authorities.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
essay  on  Plato,  although  in  that  case  explanation  to 
the  same  degree  was  impracticable. 

In  speaking  of  these  notes  I  must  acknowledge 
with  gratitude  much  friendly  help  from  my  col- 
leagues Mr.  John  L.  March  and  Mr.  John  I.  Ben- 
nett. The  former  is  a  deeper  Wordsworthian  than 
I,  and  the  latter  a  better  Grecian,  and  the  reader 
benefits,  as  I  have  done,  by  their  scholarship. 

E.  E.  H.,  Jr. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction   ix 

Chronology Ixxiii 

Bibliography Ixxv 

Selections. 

y^  Preface  to  "  The  Renaissance  " i 

/^     Sandro  Botticelli  8 

Conclusion IQ 

Wordsworth 25  V^ 

^The  Child  in  the  House 47 

^    Euphuism 69  V^ 

Divine  Service 85^ 

Denys  I'Auxerrois 9^ 

Style 123  — 

The  Genius  of  Plato i54\ 

The  Age  of  Athletic  Prizemen ^'^^  \^ 

Notre  Dame  d'Amiens 204^ 

Notes 219 

vii 


Si 

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Ml 

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a 


J. 

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I  a 

y 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

scrupulous,  which  it  certainly  was,  and  that  he  was 
discomposed  at  the  freedom  of  some  of  its  details, 
which  was  not  unnatural.  What  he  dfd  not  like 
at  all,  however,  was  the  newspaper  talk  that  arose, 
in  which  he  was  presented  to  the  world  as  a 
Hedonist. 

Now  a  Hedonist  is  commonly  thought  of  as  one 
who  makes  pleasure  the  chief  end  of  life,  and  the 
common  opinion  held  of  those  who  make  pleasure 
the  chief  end  of  life  is  that  they  are  people  like  Mr. 
Rose  or  worse.  So  the  title  of  "  Hedonist  "  did 
something  to  prejudice  Pater's  opinions  at  this  time, 
in  the  mind  of  the  general  reader,  which  was  a  bit 
unfortunate,  for  even  in  the  fairest  presentation, 
those  views  were  not  such  as  to  commend  them- 
selves wholly  to  the  majority  of  earnest  and  right- 
minded  people. 

Aside,  however,  from  the  unjust  additions  fast- 
ened to  Pater's  ideas,  "  The  New  Republic  "  really 
does  give  rather  a  fair  notion  of  his  then  philosophy. 
To  a  certain  degree,  perhaps,  Mr.  Mallock's  right 
hand  had  lost  its  cunning,  for  most  of  the  remarks 
of  Mr.  Rose  quite  lack  the  temper  of  Pater's  writ- 
ing and  seem  far  more  like  the  absurd  tapestries  of 
talk  in  the  dialogues  of  Oscar  Wilde  than  anything 
in  "  The  Renaissance."  Air.  Rose  is,  after  all  said 
and  done,  a  ridiculous  weakling.  He  is  quite  lack- 
ing in  any  vital  quality.  He  could  never  have  said 
*'  The  service  of  philosophy,  and  of  religion  and 
culture  as' well,  to  the  human  spirit  is  to  startle  it 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

into  a  sharp  and  eager  observation."  Mr.  Rose 
could  never  have  burned  with  that  hard  gem-hke 
flame ;  if  he  burned  at  all,  it  was  with  a  very  bland 
lambent,  emollient,  caressing  flame,  a  sort  of  Char- 
lotte Russe  ilame.  Still,  as  far  as  the  ideas,  the 
thoughts,  are  concerned,  we  get  a  good  deal  of 
Pater's  theory.    Take  these  two  passages : 

"  We  have  learned  that  the  aim  of  life  is  life ;  and 
what  does  successful  life  consist  in?  Simply  in  the 
consciousness  of  exquisite  living  —  in  the  making 
our  own  each  highest  thrill  of  joy  that  the  moment 
ofifers  us  —  be  it  some  touch  of  color  on  the  sea  or  / 
the  mountains,  the  early  dew  in  the  crimson 
shadows  of  a  rose,  etc." 

"  Not  the  fruit  of  experience,  but  experience  it- 
self is  the  end.  *  *  =^  While  all  melts  under 
our  feet  we  may  well  catch  at  any  exquisite  passion 
or  any  contribution  to  knowledge  that  seems,  by  a 
lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a  moment, 
or  any  stirring  of  the  senses,  strange  dyes,  strange 
flowers,  and  curious  odors,  etc." 

One  is  by  Pater  and  one  by  Mr.  Alallock  but 
not  a  few  might  easily  find  it  hard  to  tell  which  was 
the  original  and  which  the  burlesque,  unless  by 
some  external  circumstance.  When  it  comes  to 
walking  the  river-side  and  longing  for  the  infinity 
of  emotions  which  would  arise  from  seeing  some 
unfortunate  drown  herself,  or  taking  courage  on  a 
walk  through  the  ugly  streets  of  London  from  the 
shop-windows  of  the  upholsterers  and  dealers  in 


tNTRODUCti$i^  xiii 

works  of  art, —  then,  of  course,  we  have  frank  cari- 
cature, but  on  the  whole  the  so-called  hedonism  of 
"  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renaissance  "  was  a 
doctrine  readily  rfiisconceived  or  misapplied  and 
very  easily  burlesqued  or  debased.  If  Pater  had 
presented  no  other  ideas,  he  would  now  be  forgot- 
ten except  as  a  master  of  English  prose  who  had 
written  something  about  "  La  Giaconda." 

This  seems  rather  trivial :  it  is  worth  noting,  how- 
ever, because  some  writers  who  have  had  their  say 
on  Pater  have  practically  assumed  that  he  did  pre- 
sent no  other  ideas,  have  regarded  him  as  an  apostle 
of  a  sort  of  enlightened  self-indulgence,  as  one  who 
through  too  much  study  of  the  Renaissance  and  of 
Greece  had  become  an  aesthetic  epicurean.  We  may 
pass  by  contemporary  testimonies  like  Edward 
Cracroft  Lefroy's  views  on  ''  Pater  Paganism  and 
Symonds  Sensuousness,"  and  come  to  critical  opin- 
ion after  Pater's  death.  A  writer  in  the  Quarterly 
Review  also  brackets  John  Addington  Symonds  and 
Walter  Pater  as  *'  Latter  Day  Pagans  "  and  would 
have  his  readers  believe  that  Pater's  whole  work 
consisted  in  propounding  a  way  of  life  in  the  con- 
clusion of  "  The  Renaissance  "  and  retracting  it  in 
the  second  volume  of  "  Mariits."  The  theories  of 
the  Conclusion  (thinks  this  writer)  were  wrong, 
harmful,  of  ill-ef¥ect ;  but  Pater  rejected  them,  and 
gave  them  up :  the  net  result  of  his  life  work  would 
be  zero,  were  it  not  for  the  evil  efifect  that  his  tem- 
porary errors  caused  the  youth  of  his  time.    In  like 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

manner,  Mr.  Jacobus  writing  in  the  Fortnightly  of 
March,  1896,  on  ''The  Blessedness  of  Egoism." 
Pater  was  one  of  the  early  writers  for  the  Fort- 
nightly, and  this  article  a  year  or  so  after  his  death 
may  have  been  intended  to  do  him  honor.  To  ac- 
complish this  good  aim,  however,  the  author  chose 
the  curious  expedient  of  linking  Pater  with  M. 
Maurice  Barres  and  giving  such  an  impression  of 
him  as  would  be  drawn  from  the  first  two  of  his 
seven  then-published  volumes. 

The  gestlietjc  hedonisrn_of  "  The  Renaissance  "  is 
a  theory  of  a  certain  high-mindedness  and  nobility, 
presented  in  a  surcharged  and  stimulating  manner. 
Still  even  with  all  its  beauty  and  electric  fascination, 
it  is  not  such  as  to  have  given  Pater  a  place  beside 
Ruskin  and  Matthew  Arnold.  It  is  only  the  pre- 
sentation of  ideas  by  no  means  uncommon,  re- 
deemed from  commonplaceness  by  peculiar  distinc- 
tion of  manner  and  pecuHar  delicacy  of  apprecia- 
tion. But  it  is  not  the  theory  of  life  and  art  which 
is  the  net  result  of  Pater's  work.  This  was  the  be- 
ginning, the  point  from  which  Pater,  so  long  as  he 
was  before  the  public,  moved.  It  is  by  the  develop- 
ment of  his  ideas  that  Pater  is  of  worth  to  the 
readers  to-day  knd  it  is  an  account  of  this  develop- 
ment that  I  shall  try  to  give.  But  first  we  must 
have  the  point  from  which,  and  I  shall  begin  by  a 
word  or  two  on  the  early  aestheticism  of  Pater  in 
order  to  show  the  developments  and  modifications 
of  later  years. 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

The  word  "  aesthetic  "  is  one  wnich  has  had  vari- 
ous changes  of  meaning.  Imported  from  the  Greek 
sometime  ago  by  a  German  philosopher,  to  fill  an 
especial  need,  it  has  since  Baumgarten  had  a  fairly  ' 
definite  meaning  among  English  philosophers. 
But  among  the  laity  the  word  came  in  the  last 
twenty  or  thirty  years  into  great  vogue  and  passed 
away  again,  leaving  possibly  only  reminiscences  of  a 
very  vague  and  general  nature,  made  up  mostly  of  ♦ 
dadoes  and  old  china,  sunflowers  and  velvet  knick- 
erbockers, a  sort  of  mock  yearning  and  the  con- 
ceited imbecillity  of  a  Bunthorne  or  a  Maudle.  Such 
things  were  the  characteristics  of  "  the  aesthete  "  in 
the  public  mind  and  were  therefore  connoted  by  the 
word  "aesthetic."  Now  in  the  ^Esthetic  Movement 
so-called  Pater  was  a  power :  just  what  kind  of 
power  we  shall  best  understand  by  looking  at  the 
history  of  the  "  movement,"  or  rather  at  its  origin. 

The  yEsthetic  Movement  was  a  continuation  of 
Pre-Raphaelitism.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  Brother-/Y^ 
hood  was  formed  in  the  year  1848.  It  consisted  of 
seven  young  men  devoted  to  art.  Five  of  them 
were  painters,  Rosetti,  Millais,  and  Holman  Hunt 
being  now  the  best  known,  and  it  was  in  painting 
chiefly  that  they  expressed  the  principles  of  art 
which  bound  them  together.  They  exhibited  pic- 
tures which  were  marked  by  a  new  way  of  looking 
at  things  and  so  were  violently  attacked  by  the  ♦ 
lov  rs  of  art  of  their  time.  In  1850  they  published 
a  I  per  called  "  The  Germ  "  defending  their  ideas. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

¥ 
In   1 85 1   John  Ruskin,  then  a  weighty  art  critic, 

startled  into  particular  examination  of  their  work 

by  the  asperity  of  the  attacks  upon  them,  decided 

that  they  were  merely  carrying  out  to  the  letter  the 

advice  which  he  had  himself  offered  in  "  Modern 

Painters  "  and  at  once  became  a  champion.    Being 

thus  well  put  before  the  public  the,  thing  became  a 

"  movement." 

Nowadays  when  we  think  of  Rossetti,  Millais, 
and  Holman  Hunt,  we  are  not  much  struck  by 
points  in  common.  Sir  John  Everett  Millais  is  now- 
adays most  widely  known  by  his  picture  of  a  little 
boy  blowing  bubbles  with  Pears'  Soap  or  by  his 
picture  "  Cherry  Ripe,"  though  it  is  also  remem- 
bered that  he  painted  "  The  Huguenot  "  and  "  The 
Princes  in  the  Tower."  Holman  Hunt  is  best 
known  by  "  Christ  Among  the  Doctors  "  or  by 
*'  The  Shadow  of  the  Cross  "  or  by  "  The  Light  of 
the  World."  And  as  to  Rossetti,  so  far  as  he  is  re- 
membered by  the  generality  as  a  painter,  it  is,  in 
confusion  with  Burne  Jones,  as  the  creator  of  a 
type  of  wan,  mystic  beauty  which  is  sometimes  con- 
ventionally called  morbid.  It  is  this  last  conception 
which  generally  has  the  name  Pre-Raphaelite  at- 
tached to  it  in  our  minds. 

It  is  not  the  later  Millais.  or  the  later  Rossetti 
either,  that  best  represents  the  early  aims  oi  ■he 
Pre-Raphaelites.  It  is  true  that  the  name  vi  re- 
Raphaelite  became  attached  to  Rossetti  and  ^fot- 
lowed  all  his  variations  of  temper  with  a  clost  \e?s 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

that  was  very  annoying  to  him.  But  the  early  Pre- 
RaphaeHtism  was  a  way  of  looking  at  things  as 
much  as  anything  else,  and  it  may  be  best  studied 
in  the  paintings  of  Holman  Hunt.  He  was  an 
earnest,  patient,  logical,  doddering  Pre-Raphaelite 
to  the  very  end,  and  as  his  pictures  do  not  out- 
wardly resemble  in  the  slightest  degree  anything 
ever  painted  before  Raphael,  we  shall  best  see  from 
him  what  were  the  ideas  called  Pre-Raphaelite. 
Holman  Hunt  always  painted  under  oath.  He 
swore  to  himself  to  paint  the  truth,  the  whol^  truth 
and  nothing  but  the  truth.  In  other  words  he  put 
away  the  conventions  of  the  schools  and  painted 
what  he  saw.  The  conventions  of  the  schools  went 
back  to  Raphael ;  the  primitives,  the  painters  before 
Raphael,  had  little  of  them.  Hence  the  name  Pre- 
Raphaelite.  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais  worked  on 
this  theory  and  were  Pre-Raphaelite  only  because  i(^ 
they  discarded  the  conventions  of  the  schools.  Ros- 
setti  was  a  Pre-Raphaelite  for  this  reason ;  but  he 
might  have  been  so-called  for  another,  too,  namely 
because  he  unconsciously  imitated  the  painters  who 
came  before  Raphael.  Hence  with  him  the  term 
Pre-Raphaelite  had  not  only  the  meaning  which 
he  and  his  companions  attached  to  it,  but  also  the 
meaning  which  the  inartistic  world  at  large  could 
attach  to  it.  And  the  term  Pre-Raphaelite  came 
to  connote  in  the  general  mind,  not  the  simple  art- 
principles  which  the  inventors  of  the  term  had  in 
mind,  but  other  ideas,  ideas  naturally  enough  con- 
2 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

nected  with  the  name.  It  came  to  imply  in  the  pub- 
He  mind  a  certain  mediaeval  and  renaissance  char- 
acter of  art.  In  this  sense  Pre-Raphaelitism  ap- 
peared in  literature.  Rossetti's  ''  Blessed  Damozel  " 
(written  in  1846)  was  evidently  mediaeval.  So  was 
m.uch  of  William  Morris's  '*  Defense  of  Guenevere  " 
which  appeared  in  1858.  So  was  much  of  Swin- 
burne's "  Poems  and  Ballads  "  which  appeared  in 
1866.  Rossetti,  Morris,  and  Swinburne  were  per- 
sonal friends,  in  the  public  mind  they  were  readily 
classed  together. 

The  term  Pre-Raphaelite  was  manifestly  inappro- 
priate as  applied  to  poetry.  It  is  true  th^t  Rossetti 
was  deeply  read  in  older  Italian  poetry,  but  even 
that  was  no  especial , reason  for  calling  hi§  poems 
Pre-Raphaelite.  As  to  Morris  the  inspiration  of  his 
first  volume  was  rather  old  French  than  anything 
else,  and  as  to  Swinburne,  if  we  search  for  his  in- 
spiration we  are  soon  led  to  call  him  eclectic.  Still 
there  certainly  is  a  common  quality  to  the  poems  of 
these  three  men.  There  is  something  far  deeper 
than  some  obvious  superficialities.  Let  us  say  that 
Rossetti  was  Italian,  Morris  Old  French,  Swin- 
burne Greek  or  anything  else  you  like ;  there  is  be- 
yond all  that  a  common  quality  and  a  vital  one. 
L^or  this  quality,  which  is  the  chief  thing Jhe  three 
have  in  conimoji,  the  name  "  Pre-Raphaelite  "  is 
\  fflfot  a  good  name.  In j 868  Pater  defined  the  quality 
/and  p-ave  it  the  name  ''  .Esthetic.''  He  was  a  great 
admirer  cf  the  work  of  Burne  Jones  and  on  intimate 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

terms  with  Swinburne.  In  his  own  way  he  was 
interested  in  the  things  that  interested  those  men. 
The  early  Itahan  painters  he  studied  with  interest 
and  therefore  admired  Pre-Raphaelite  painting. 
The  literature  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  he  also 
studied  and  was  therefore  in  touch  with  William^^ 
Morris.  But  he  was  not  a  painter  nor  a  poet: 
hence  he  had  nothing  especial  to  do  with  ^.he  early 
Pre-Raphaelite  principles  which  concerned  paint- 
ing pictures,  nor  much  more  with  the  ideas  of  the 
"  aesthetic  "  poets,  as  he  called  them.  He  was  a  stu- 
dent, having  views  on  art,  it  is  true,  whether  paint- 
ing or  poetry,  but  not  from  the  artist's  stand-point. 
He  was  a  student  of  aesthetic  and  something  of  a 
philosopher  as  well  and  therefore  was  led  to  con- 
sider the  relation  of  art  to  life  in  general.  His  par- 
ticular interests,  being  for  the  time  at  least  in  the 
Renaissance,  gave  an  especial  turn  to  his  theories. 
But  althoiigh  he  was  called  a  Pre-JBLRph?^ elite  he  was 
by  no  means  pjedgedjto_t_he  principles  of  Rossetti, 
and  although  we  think  of  him  as  a  leader  in  the 
Esthetic  Movement,  he  was  not  necessarily  the 
champion  of  the  views  of  Swinburne.  Like  almost 
everyone  ~e1se~"1ir~ England  he  was  interested  in 
medievalism  or  more  exactly,  in  his  case,  in  the 
Renaissance,  and  as  wliat  he  wrote  about  this  time 
dealt  with  Renaissance  subjects,  he  was  naturally 
grouped  in  the  public  mind  with  the  poets  and 
painters  who,  found  inspiration  there.  In  1868  he 
had  written  an  article  upon  the  poems  of  William 


iJ^ 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

Morris,  but  the  article  would  seem  to  have  lain  long 
unpublished.  In  the  years  following,  however,  he 
published  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  results  of  his 
own  interest  in  the  Renaissance,  namely  the  articles 
on  Leonardo  (1869),  Botticelli  (1870),  and  Michael 
Angelo  (1871).  In  1^23^ he  published  these  essays" 
with  several  others  under  the  title  "  Studies  in  the 
History  of  the  Renaissance."  Besides  the  critical 
essays  was  an  introduction  explaining  tKe  aims  of 
his  criticism^  and  a  conclusion  in  which  he  stated 
tersely  the  thepr^iofaxtjand  life  that,  seemed  best  to 
him. 

It  is  this  Conclusion  which  has  caused  all  the 
trouble.  There  is  not  I  suppose  another  such  piece 
of  writing  in  J^nglish  Literature.  It  is  but  half  a 
dozen  pages  long  and  yet  it  states  a  philosophy  of 
life  so  completely,  _so  brilliantly  and  to  one  having 
the  sHghtest  sympathy,  so  convincingly,  that  it 
seems  as  though  nothing  more  need  be  said,  or 
rather  as  though  nothing  more  could  be  said. 

Exactly  what  effect  this  Conclusion  has  had  upon 
the  life  and  thought  of  England  is  more  than  I  can 
say.  The  Quarterly  seems  to  think  that  by  it  not 
a  few  have  been  led  astray.  Pater  thought  that  it 
was  misunderstood,  which  seems  almost  impossi- 
ble. At  any  rate  when  a  second  edition  of  "  The 
Renaissance "  was  printed  four  years  later,  the 
Conclusion  was  omitted. 

What,  then,  was  this  famous  or  infamous  philoso- 
phy?    It  can  hardly  be  made  clearer  than   Pater 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

made  it,  still  it  may  be  useful  to  call  attention  to 
what  in  the  light  of  after-writings  seems  to  be  its 
most  important  points. 

^  In  the  first  place  it  ofifers  a  theory  of  life  which  ^ 
has  no  reference  to  any  existence  except  that  of 
this  earth.  "  A  counted  number  of  pulses  only  is 
given  to  us  " :  to  any  course  of  action  having  refer- 
ence to  a  future  life  or  to  anything  not  immediately 
perceivable  in  this  world,  the  Conclusion  makes  no 
allusion.  That  was  the  first  thing  that  gave  ofifence. 
The  Conclusion  as  a  philosophy  of  life  was  dis- 
tinctly Pagan :  a  Christian  might  find  its  resultant 
ideas  not  incompatible  with  very  dififerent  bases, 
but  Pater  himself  had  nothing  to  say  about 
Christianity ;  he  took  his  text  from  a  Greek  philos- 
opher, a  predecessor  of  Darwin. 

But  in  the  second  place  the  Conclusion^as  not  ^ 
merely  Pagan,  it  was  Epicurean.  Now  Hedonistic, 
Cyrenaic,  Antinomian,  are  words  not  exactly  un- 
derstood by  the  world  at  large,  but  everybody 
knows  that  the  Epicureans  were  people  who  lived 
for  themselves  alone.  They  were  therefore  not 
merely  non-Christian  but  distinctly  anti-Christian. 
Epicureanism  means  in  most  minds  sensuousness, 
voluptuousness,  licentiousness,  and  these  are  bad^ 
things ;  nobody  can  publicly  defend  them  or  submit 
to  any  contact  with  them. 

iln  fact,  taken  literally,  the  Conclusion  does 
actually  offer  principles  from  which  may  be  logi- 
cally deduced  a  career  of  artistic  libertinism,  and  it 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

offers  very  little  direct  advice  to  counteract  the  im- 
pulse to  such  deduction.  From  anything  really 
hideous,  Pater's  own  exquisite  taste  and  his  own 
sane  love  of  the  healthful  would  infallibly  have 
saved  him  ;  but  there  may  well  enough  have  been 
disciples  who,  embarking  upon  a  life  which  was  to 
be  a  quest  for  every  most  refined,  most  delicate 
sensation,  landed  finally  in  a  position  which  made 
them  a  source  of  offence  to  decent  people. 

All  this  may  be,  and  yet  it  is  qtiite  true  that  the 
Conclusion   may   also   serve  as  an   incentive   to   a 

Cigher  life  for  those  who  honestly  and  single-mind- 
dly  love  the  things  of  good  report.  We  may  be- 
lieve most  firmly  in  a  future  life  and  still  be  as- 
sured of  our  duty  to  get  all  we  can  out  of  this  one. 
We  may  believe  most  firmly  in  the  duty  of  living 
for  others  and  yet  we  never  can  escape  the  duty 
of  living  for  ourselves.  The  Conclusion  need  not 
be  taken  to  refer  only  to  a  life  of  self-indulgence : 
it  really  leaves  open  the  kind  of  sensation  which 
shall  make  up  our  lives.  Pater's  preference  was 
clear  enough ;  the  wisest,  he  says,  spend  the  interval 
in  art  and  song.  But  others,  he  remarks,  spend  it 
in    "  religious   enthusiasm   or    the   enthusiasm    of 

j    humanity." 

\  The  enduring  element  of  the  Conclusion  lay  really 
in  its^impulse  towards  a  real  life  instead  of  a  con- 
ventional, formal,  orthodox  sort  of  existence.  Pater 
was  called  a  Pagan  but  a  Christian  can  lead  such  a 
life  as'welTas  anyone  else,  and  indeed  better,  for  he 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

is  the  only  one  who  really  knows  how  the  thing  is 
to  be  done.  To  be  a  Christian  does  not  mean  to  be 
a  rigid  formalist  of  any  given  pattern :  it  was  just 
that  sort  of  thing  that  Christ  did  away  with.  He 
came  to  supply  the  world  an  active,  vitalizing  spirit 
whereby  each  one,  instead  of  merely  following  out 
the  law,  might  enjoy  eternal  life.  It  is  true  that 
Pater^s  idea  of  life  was  by  no  mean^s  Chrjstian :  still 
consider  some  of  his  most  brilliant  sentences :  they 
have  in  themselves  no  more  than  *'  I  am  come  that 
they  might  have  life  and  that  they  might  have  it 
more  abundantly.'' 
v^^  The  Christian,  then,  may  convert  to  his  own  ends 
the  inspiring  counsel  of  the  Conclusion  (as  Pater, 
afterwards,  perhaps,  perceived)  and  his  life  may 
thereby  become  the  more  eagerly  and  keenly  vigor- 
ous in  the  way  that  he  has  chosen.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Epicurean  of  popular  fancy,  might  easily 
work  out  of  the  Conclusion  an  incentive  to  a  life  less 
satisfying.  And  of  this  Pater,  I  suppose,  became 
aware;  it  was  this  possible  misunderstanding,  I 
suppose,  which  led  him  to  omit  the  Conclusion  in 
the  edition  of  1877.  As  he  wrote  some  years  after- 
ward—  on  another  matter  but  perhaps  with  the 
Conclusion  in  mind  — "  How  would  Paolo  and 
Francesca  have  read  the  lesson  ?  " 

The  Christian  and  the  Epicurean  might  each 
have  found  the  Conclusion  to  their  purpose.  Heater 
was  neither ;  at  this  time  and  throughout  his  life  he 
might  have  been  called  a  Neo-Platonist.    The  word 


.xiv  INTRODUCTION 

is  a  vague  one,  but  by  it  I  would  convey  the  idea 
that  Pater  was  deeply  interested  in  the  philosophy 
of  the  spirit  and  in  those  of  ancient  and  recent  times 
who  have  affirmed  something  of  it.    One  of  his  first 
pieces  of  writing  was  on  the  philosophy  of  Cole- 
ridge, in  this  volume  was  the  essay  on  Pico  della 
Mirandola,  some  years  later  he  wrote  on  Giordano 
Bruno,  and  the  last  work  published  in  his  lifetime 
was  the  volume  on  Plato.     Pater  was  one  who  be- 
/  lieved  in  the  Spirit  and  this  Conclusion  if  we  wish 
to  get  at  its  author's  intent  must  be  read  from  the 
standpoint  of  such  a  one.    "  While  all  metts  under 
our  feet,  we  may  well  catch  at  any  exquisite  pas- 
sion, or  any  contribution  to  knowledge  that  seems  by 
\  a  lifted  horizon,  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a  moment,  or 
I  any  stirring  of  the   senses,   strange   dyes,   strange 
/  fiowers,  and  curious  odors,  or  work  of  the  artist's 
I   hands,  or  the  face  of  one's  friend."     Those  words 
italicized,  although  one  might  pass  them  over  on 
a  first  reading,  turn  out  on  a  knowledge  of  what 
came  after,  to  have  been  the  most  important  words 
in  the  book. 

Before  we  proceed  to  study  Pater's  advance  from 
the  equivocal  premises  of  the  Conclusion,  there  is 
a  word  or  two  more  to  be  said  on  the  Pre-Raphael- 
ite or  Esthetic  Movement,  by  which  latter  name 
it  came  gradually  to  be  called.  I  fear  that  most  of 
us  recollect  it  by  its  sun-flowers  and  peacock- 
feathers  rather  than  by  its  real  excellences ;  we  re- 
member it  better  in  the  person  of  Bunthorne  or 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

Maudle  than  in  anybody  of  real  power.  It  is  true 
Pater  never  presents  himself  to  us  as  a  Bunthorne 
or  a  Maudle,  as  lesser  men  did  not  disdain  to  do, 
but  we  certainly  can,  and  that  without  much  diffi- 
culty, trace  a  family  likeness,  or  rather  one  can  see 
in  what  he  has  to  say  some  of  the  ideas  so  cleverly 
travestied  by  Du  Maurier  and  Gilbert.  Among  the 
sketches  in  "  Punch  "  in  the  seventies,  one  remem- 
bers many  a  hit  at  the  aesthetes  and  among  them, 
perhaps,  that  of  a  very  haggard,  unkempt  creature 
in  "  Passionate  Brompton,"  looking  with  clasped 
hands  at  a  very  round-faced  and  comfortable  Jones, 
who  is  about  to  take  her  down  to  dinner,  with  the 
question,  ''  Are  you  Intense?  "  As  one  turns  over 
the  sketches  many  a  forgotten  catch-word  of  the 
worn-out  fad  arises  to  recollection,  "  quite  too 
utterly  utter,"  and  so  on,  but  none  is  more  charac- 
teristic of  the  real  strength  of  the  movement  and 
the  silly  weakness  of  its  affectations,  than  this  one 
word  "  intense."  And  this  qualfty  of  intensity,  the 
qualit}'  so  prized  by  the  false  aesthetes  and  the  true 
alike,  this  quality  is  a  dominant  element  in  the 
mood  which  came  to  its  best  expression  in  the  Con- 
clusion to  "  The  Renaissance."  Intensity  is  not  a  \/ 
distinguishing  quality  of  art.  There  is  no  reason 
why  a  person  who  is  intense  should  also  have  artis- 
tic tastes.  It  is  true  that  the  power  of  intense  feel- 
ing is  very  apt  to  be  accompanied  by  a  delight  in 
beautiful  things  but  it  is  not  always.  Love  is  an  in- 
tense passion,  patriotism,  zeal  in  reHgion  or  science, 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION 

ill  fact  every  passion  is  intense  or  it  is  not  a  passion. 
Intensity  is  a  necessary  quality  in  the  artistic  nature, 
but  not  a  distinguishing  one.  It  was  a  mark  of 
Pater's  breadth  of  view,  of  his  cathoHcism  of  appre- 
ciation, that  the  idea  which  impressed  him  most 
lastingly  in  the  aesthetic  movement  was  this  idea 
of  intensity. 

It  is  true  that  he  was  not  uncontaminated  by 
false  intensity.  Some  sentences  in  his  writings,  are 
very  good  specimens  of  what  may  be  called  aesthetic 
prose,  namely  prose  that  has  all  the  weakness  of  the 
aesthetic  movement,  prose  like  Swinburne's.  For 
example : 

"  The  EngHsh  poet  too  has  learned  the  secret. 
He  has  diffused  through  King  Arthurs  Tomb  the 
maddening-  white  glare  of  the  sun,  and  tyranny  of 
the  moon,  not  tender  and  far  off,  but  close  dow^n  — 
the  sorcerer's  moon,  large  and  feverish.  The  color- 
ing is  intricate  and  delirious  as  of  '  scarlet  lilies.' 
The  influence  of  summer  is  like  a  poison  in  one's 
blood,  with  a  sudden  bewildering  sickening  of  life 
and  all  things.  In  Galahad:  a  Mystery,  the  frost  of 
Christmas  night  in  the  chapel  stones  acts  as  a 
strong  narcotic :  a  sudden  shrill  ringing  pierces 
through  the  numbness :  a  voice  proclaims  that  the 
Grail  has  gone  forth  through  the  great  forest." 

Such  passages  have  the  aesthetic  trademark  upon 
them.  There  is  all  the  self-consciousness,  all  the 
straining  for  effect,  all  the  affectation  which  still 
clings  to  the  name  '*  aesthetic,"  all  the  whipped-up 


INTiiOD^JTlON      ,   ^  x/ 

intensity  which  deceives  weak  natures  and  some- 
times strong  ones.  Such  prose  as  that,  were  there 
much  of  it  in  Pater's  work,  would  show  that  he  had 
been  influenced  by  the  weaker  elements  in  a  move- 
ment with  which  he  has  been  to  some  extent  identi- 
fied. But  there  are  not  many  such  sentences  in 
Pater's  work, —  those  particular  ones  occur  in  the 
essay  on  WiUiam  Morris's  "Defence  of  Guenevere  " 
in  a  passage  where  the  temptation  to  suit  style  to 
subject  led  the  author  to  express  himself  in  a  way 
which  was  hardly  natural  to  him.  This  sort  of 
"  sestheticism  ''  is  no  considerable  element  in  Pater's 
work,  and  yet  the  very  fact  that  what  we  have  is  so 
perfect  of  its  kind,  goes  to  show  by  how  little  Pater 
escaped  becoming  what  others  did  become. 

As  it  was  we  have  Pater  in  the  year  1874,  the 
year  of  "  The  New  Republic,"  a  man  who  believed 
in  intensity  of  life,  in  a  life  which  gained  beauty  and 
value  from  a  strong  appreciation  of  tlie  lovely  things 
of  nature  and  art,  and  whose  interests  had  for  some- 
time be£n  with  the  poets  and  painters  of  the_ Renais- 
sance, a  time  in  which  flourished  many  whose  lives 
are  not  very  good  examples  for  people  five  centuries 
later  who  admire  their  works.  As  such  Pater  was 
doubtless  a  dangerous  guide  for  the  young  and 
generous,  a  man  to  be  avoided.  It  is  somewhat 
curious  that  his  next  publication  should  have  been 
an  essay  on  Wordsworth.  Somewhat  curious,  be- 
cause a  delight  in  Wordsworth  seems  incongruous 
with  the  idea  some  people  have  formed  of  the  author 


y.viii  INTRODUCTION 

of  "  The  Renaissance."  This  dilletante  hedonist, 
this  leader-astray  of  the  generous-hearted,  this  fore- 
runner of  how  much  foohshness  and  evil,  this  suave 
apostle  of  exquisite  immorality,  what  is  he  doing 
now?    He  is  reading  Wordsworth. 

It  is  true  that  one  may  read  Wordsworth  and  yet 
be  a  person  of  very  dangerous  tendencies,  as  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  for  example,  was  once  thought  to  be. 
And  yet  it  is  a  hard  point  to  get  over ;  it  is  certainly 
not  a  moral  act  to  like  Wordsworth  and  yet  he  is 
not  the  poet  whom  one  would  suppose  attractive  to 
epicureans,  sensualists,  libertines. 

This  essay  on  Wordsworth,  if  we  read  it  now, 
not  as  criticism  but  as  autobiography,  is  a  remark- 
ably illuminating  piece  of  work.    What  is  there  in 
Wordsworth  to  attract  the  Pre-Raphaelite?     The 
preciseness  and  vividness  with  which  he  sees  nature 
/  and  the  sincerity  and  scrupulousness  with  which  he 
I  has  rendered  her  sights  and  sounds.  Why  is  Words- 
I  worth  of  interest  to  the  aesthete  ?     Because  he  "  has 
\done  so  much  for  those  who  value  highly  the  con- 
centrated treatment  of  passion,  who  appraise  men 
and  women  by  their  sensibility  to  it,  and  art  and 
poetry  as  they  afford  the  spectacle  of  it."    What 
is  there  for  the  spiritual  hedonist?     The  idea  that 
"  contemplation  —  impassioned     contemplation  — 
that  is,  with  Wordsworth,  the  end  in  itself,  the  per- 
fect end."    That  the  end  of  life  is  being  as  distinct 
from  doing,  a  certain  disposition  of  mind  rather  than 
any  prescribed  set  of  actions.    The  essay  is  a  more 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

accurate  expression  of  Pater's  own  ideas  than  of 
Wordsworth's.  If  one  study  this  essay  instead  of 
the  Conclusion  to  ''  The  Renaissance,"  one  will  find 
the  same  philosophy,  although  put  in  a  less  brilliant 
and  therefore  less  immoral  form. 

But  for  a  time  Pater  gave  up  the  idea  of  offering 
the  world  a  philosophy  of  life  and  betook  himself 
to  studies  other  than  those  with  which  his  name  was 
associated.  When  a  new  edition  of  "  The  Renais- 
sance "  was  called  for,  he  withdrew  the  Conclusion 
which  he  thought  had  been  misunderstood.  It  was 
almost  as  though  he  were  for  a  time  disgusted  with 
the  matter;  at  any  rate  he  turned  his  attention  to 
other  studies  and,  except  for  a  few  stray  essays, 
never  published  anything  else  directly  upon  the 
Renaissance.  During  the  next  few  years  he  seems 
to  have  studied  Greek  art  chiefly  ;_I  suspect  he 
found  it  cool  and  refreshing. 


The  revival  of  a  knowledge  of  Greek  literature 
had  been  one  of  the  elements  of  the  Renaissance, 
and  Pater  had  added  to  the  strictly  Renaissance 
studies  in  his  book,  his  essay  on  Winkelmann, 
which  included  some  consideration  of  Greek 
sculpture.  It  does  not  appear  that  between  1874 
and  1880,  Pater  looked  at  Greek  art  from  the 
standpoint  of  that  essay.  The  "  Greek  Studies," 
collected  after  his  death,  but  written,  for  the  most 
part,  at  this  time,  approach  the  subject  in  rather  a 
different  way.  They  are  not  in  the  tone  of  his  first 
book. 


XXX  INTRODUCTION 

Beside  the  Conclusion,  "  The  Renaissance  "  had 
an  introduction,  in  which  were  laid  down  cer- 
tain principles  of  crticism  agreeable  to  that  phil- 
osophy of  life  which  regarded  art  as  the  most 
efficient  means  of  vitalizing  the  passage  of  exist- 
ence. The  office  of  the  critic  was  to  discriminate 
between  the  sensations  aroused  by  one  and  another 
work  of  art.  Each  beautiful  thing  had  its  own 
specific  virtue :  the  duty  of  the  critic  was  rightly  to 
appreciate  it.  Hence  the  word  "  appreciation," 
instead  of  "  criticism,"  which  has  had  a  certain 
currency. 

These  Greek  studies,  however,  are  not  apprecia- 
tions in  such  a  sense  of  the  word.  Pater  undertook 
to  sjate,  not  how^Greek  art  appeared  to  him,  but 
how  it  had  appeared  to  the  Greeks.  These  studies 
were,  in  intention  at  least,  scientific.  The  inquiry 
was  not,  What  besf  "pleasure  may  we  get  from 
Greek  art?  but,  What  sort  of  thing  was  Greek  art 
to  the  Greeks  themselves  ?  Therefore,  Pater  began 
with  some  studies  of  Greek  religion,  whence  he 
passed  to  Greek  tragedy  and  Greek  sculpture. 

The  result  of  these  studies,  as  one  considers  the 
book  collected  after  Pater's  death,  is  a  curious  one. 
It  neglects,  on  the  whole,  the  question.  What  may 
art  be  to  us  ?  —  it  discusses  rather  what  art  was 
once  to  those  with  whom  it  arose.  These  essays 
are  full  of  human  interest.  They  present  Greek 
mytholog;v_to^sjn^  \vaj^  tojwhich 
unaccustomed.     The  average  schoolboy  conception 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

of  Greek  mythology  (and  how  many  of  us  never 
outgrow  it!)  is  of  a  great  collection  of  stories  of 
gods  and  heroes  who,  though  constantly  getting 
mixed  up,  have  each  quite  a  distinct  character  to 
be  understood  alike  by  everybody.  Such  a  con- 
ception does  not  seek  to  explain  how  any  one 
could  ever  have  had  belief  in  the  existence  of  these 
creatures;  it  merely  presents  them. 

These  studies  of  Pater  proceed  from  a  very  differ- 
ent point  of  view.  His  very  first  sentence  gives  a 
different  idea.  "  Writers  on  mythology  speak 
habitually  of  the  religion  of  the  Greeks.  In  thus 
speaking,  they  are  really  using  a  misleading  expres- 
sion, and  should  speak  rather  of  religions;  each  race 
and  class  of  the  Greeks  —  the  Dorians,  the  people 
of  the  coast,  the  fishers  —  having  had  a  religion  of 
its  own  conceived  of  the  objects  that  came  nearest 
to  it  and  were  most  in  its  thoughts,  and  the  resulting 
usages  and  ideas  never  having  come  to  have  a 
precisely  harmonized  system  after  the  analogy  of 
some  rehgions."  Here  we  have  an  effort  to  see 
how  a  people  embodied  their  spiritual  ideas  in 
forrns  —  Greel^  mythology  being  at  the  bottom  of 
Greek  art  —  how^they  gave  forms  to  their  concep- 
tions and  how  these  forms  had  part  and  influence 
in  their  lives. 

HowTar  these  essays  seemed  at  the  time  to  have 
any  connection  with  Pater's  then  just  published 
book,  I  cannot  say.:  they  had  really,  however,  a 
sort  of  connection  or  more  exactly  showed  a  sort 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION 

of  development.  In  "  The  Rensaissance  "  we  had 
work  done  with  the  prevaiHng  idea  in  mind  that 
art  was  a  sort  of  leaven  to  give  life  and  lightness 
to  existence.  What  have  we  to  do  with  art?  was 
the  question.  This  and  that,  said  Pater,  where- 
upon arose  vigorous  criticism.  Pater's  mind  may 
then  very  well  have  returned  upon  itself.  Instead 
of  asking:  What  have  we  to  do  with  art?  or  rather, 
What  is  art  to  us?  he  thought,  What  has  art  really 
been  to  some  real  people?  To  the  Greeks,  for  ex- 
ample. How  did  they  create  and  mould  their  art? 
and  again.  How  did  their  art  mould  and  modify 
them?  Some  such  questions  may  have  been  more 
or  less  consciously  at  the  bottom  of  these  studies : 
questions  like  these  may,  also,  have  been  at  the 
bottom  of  another  piece  of  work  of  about  this  time, 
namely  "  The  Child  in  the  House."  This  "  Imagi- 
nary Portrait,"  as  it  was  called,  is  a  study  of  the 
early  development  of  the  life  of  one  who  in  later 
years  had  been  profoundly  influenced  by  philosophv 
and  art.  It  is  true  that  the  idea  is  not  carried  very 
far  —  we  have  only  the  beginning,  only  a  study  of 
how  .shildhood  is  influenced  by  surroundings  — 
but  had  it  been  carried  farther,  as  it  must  have  been 
carried  in  Pater's  mind,  it  could  not  but  have  be- 
come a  study  of  the  way  a  maturer  life  was  influ- 
enced by  art. 

"  The  Child  in  the  House  "  has  been  called  auto- 
biographic, and  doubtless  there  is  something  of 
autobiography  in  it,  although  no  more,  ,1  fancy, 


INTR0DUC7I0N  xxxiii 

« 

than  there  is  apt  to  be  in  any  work  not  rigidly  ob- 
jective. Florian  Deleal  would  have  been  in  later  < 
life  a  man  much  like  Pater,  a  student  of  the  arts, 
an  amateur  of  life,  one  who  had  been  much  occu- 
pied in  philosophies  and  speculations,  but  a  lover 
of  the  beautiful  as  well,  so  that  he  was  led  to 
assign  more  importance  to  the  sensible  form  than 
to  the  abstract  thought  beneath.  It  may  be  that 
like  Florian,  Pater  had  then  "  a  certain  design  in 
view,  the  noting,  namely,  of  some  things  in  the 
story  of  his  spirit."  Under  the  attacks  upon  his 
theories  of  art  and  life,  Pater  may  have  turned  back 
to  think  a  little  as  to  the  influence  of  art  on  his  own 
life,  and  so,  allowing  his  thoughts  some  Hberty  in 
avoiding  facts,  there  grew  up  in  his  mind  this 
shadowy  companion,  a  sort  of  doppelganger,  as  it 
were,  one  who  lived  a  life  much  like  Pater's  own, 
differing,  perhaps,  in  this  or  that  unimportant  par- 
ticular, but  of  the  same  stuff  throughout,  of  the 
same  character. 

By  whatever  turn  of  thought  and  interest  it  was 
reached,  the  product  of  the  years  foUowing  was 
published  in  1885  in  the  form  of  "  Marius  the  Epi- 
curean." I  suggest  the  connecting  links  of  Greek 
religion  and  Imaginary  Portrait :  we  have  in 
"  Marius  "  the  study  of  a  young  Roman  feeling  his 
way  in  early  life  through  the  religions,  the  philoso- 
phies, the  arts  of  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

"  Marius  the  Epicurean  "  has  been  called  an  auto- 
biography and  it  probably  has,  even  more  than 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION 

''  The  Child  in  the  House,"  a  strong  autobiographic 
color.  Without  identifying  Pater  with  his  hero,  we 
may  certainly  see  in  the  book  phases  of  thought 
and  passion  which  must  have  come  from  experience. 
We  may  run  through  the  book  and  almost  every- 
where point  out  curious  analogies  with  something 
else  written  by  Pater,  either  before  or  after.  If 
only  the  first  two  chapters  had  been  written,  we 
should  have  had  a  figure  closely  resembling  "  The 
Child  in  the  House."  The  fatherless  boy  growing 
up  in  the  old  house  surrounded  by  beautiful  trees 
and  flowers,  and  by  the  polished  observances  of  a 
cultivated  life,  the  soul  sensible  to  beauty  and  re- 
ligion, supersensitive,  for  a  boy's,  and  turned  much 
upon  its  own  thoughts  and  feelings, —  these  are 
the  same  in  each :  if  we  conceive  of  Florian  Deleal 
carried  through  two  volumes  and  Marius  stopped 
after  two  chapters,  we  can  see  how  we  might  still 
have  had  much  the  same  development  of  ideas, 
though  in  a  more  modern-  dress,  a  too  modern 
dress.  Pater  may  have  thought. 

In  other  respects,  too,  we  may  have  coincidences. 
The  description  of  the  old  "  reUgion  of  Numa  "  is 
closely  allied  in  spirit  with  studies  of  the  religions 
of  the  fisher-folk,  the  country  people,  the  coast- 
dwellers  of  Greece.  Flavian's  ideals  in  letters  ap- 
pear in  other  forms  in  the  later  Essay  on  Style. 
The  self-sacrifice  of  Marius  may  be  compared  with 
the  story  of  Sebastian  van  Storck,  which  appeared 
only  a  year  or  two  afterwards.     And  not  onjy  are 


INTRODUCTION  xxxv 

these  main  motives  to  be  recognized,  but  through- 
out" the  book  the  reader  of  Pater  is  constantly 
noting~l;he^appearance  of  some  thought  or  mood 
which  also  has  its  place  elsewhere.  AH  Ibis  shows, 
not  how  poor  wa_s^  Pater's  imagination,  but  .how 
genuinely  he  put-  himself  into  his  work.  He  was 
not  one  to  dash  on  and  on,  scattering  brilliant 
flashes  from  his  horsehoofs  to  glitter  and  go  out. 
His  thoughts  matured  slowly;  he  was  constantly 
embodying  them  in  new  forms,  and  always  watch- 
ing intently  the  modifications  and  developments. 
There  is  one  very  curious  example.  He  seems  to 
have  been  early  impressed  by  the  conception  of 
Heine's  "  Gods  in  Exile,"  quoting  from  it  in  his 
essay  on  Pico  della  Mirandola,"  published  in  187 1, 
and  by  it  illustrating  the  Renaissance  conceptions 
of  antiquity.  In  1886  he  developed  the  idea  and 
gave  it  form  in  the  tale  of  Denys  I'Auxerrois.  In 
1893  he  turned  to  it  again  and  made  the  story  of 
*'  Apollo  in  Picardy  "  One  might  almost  say  that 
he  never  gave  up  an  idea.  Not  that  he  was  in  any 
way  obstinate  in  his  opinions :  quite  the  reverse ; 
life,  he  thought,  was  far  too  short  to  rest  on  '*  any 
facile  orthodoxy  of  Comte  or  Hegel."  But  he  rarely 
gave  up'  utterly  an  idea  which  had  once  attracted 
him;  he  tried  it  and  tested  it  and  turned  it;  he 
forced  it  to  give  him  everything  he  could  wring 
from  it. 

But  of  all  the  comparison  and  coincidence  which 
we  may  think  of  in  reading  "  Marius,"  the  most 


xxxvi  INTRODUCTION 

interesting  is  that  which  we  may  make  with  the 
conclusion   to   "  The    Renaissance."     It   is   indeed 
almost  a  matter  of  course  that  there  is  in  "  jNlarius 
the''Epicurean  "  another  presentation  of  that  theory 
of  life  which  had  been  put  forth  twelve  years  be- 
fore, harshly  criticised  and  silently  withdrawn.     In 
fact  we  have  almost  exactly  the  same  idea  —  some 
variations  will  be  of  interest  later  —  wdth  a  single 
difference,  a  difference  of  great  importance.       In 
"  The   Renaissance  "   the   view  was   placed   at   the 
end ;  it  seemed  to  be  for  the  time,  at  least,  the  last 
word.     In  "  Marius  "  it  comes  early  in  the  book ; 
it  is  almost  a  starting  point.    And  it  is  the  develop- 
ment   of    thought    from     this     point     that     gives 
"  Marius  "    its    peculiar    interest    in    tiie    study    of 
Pater's  philosophy.    When  the  book  was  first  pub- 
lished  it  was   at  once   recognized  that   Pater  had 
presented    a    development    of    that    "  hedonism " 
which  the  newspapers   and   Air.   Edward   Cracroft 
Lefroy  had  reprehended,  but  no  one  perceived  the 
exact  scope  of  the  development,  and  even  now,  in 
the  light  of  much  now  published,  written  by  Pater 
before  '*  Marius  "  and  afterward,  one  cannot  rest 
assured  that  Pater's  later  philosophy  is  before  us 
in  any  such  sharp   clearness   as   characterized   his 
earlier  views.     For  this  there  are  several  reasons, 
of  which  the  chief  is  that  Pater  himself  conceived 
his  later  ideas  with  no  such  definite  sharpness  as 
had  distinguished  his  earlier  thought.     He  makes 
plain   enough   what   is   needed  for  his  story,   the 


INTRODUCTION  xxxvii 

development  of  the  thought  of  Marius,  but  it  is 
only  by  rather  tentative  conjectures  that  we  can 
reconstruct  for  ourselves  anything  that  shall  be  in 
harmony  with  what  we  may  otherwise  know.  Any 
attempt  should  be  offered  with  diffidence :  it  is 
sometimes  pretty  hard  even  to  find  out  what  one 
thinks  oneself  (if  anything),  and  Pater's  mind  was 
a  very  subtle  one. 

In  the  first  glow  of  realization  of  manhood,  sent 
to  philosoph}^  for  comfort  which  the  religion  of 
Numa  failed  to  give,  Marius  became  an  Epicurean 
of  the  school  of  Aristippus  of  Cyrene.  And,  not  to 
risk  misconception  by  vagueness  of  allusion,  it  will 
be  well  to  note  the  main  elements  of  his  then  theory 
quite  definitely. 

-The  idea  from  which  he  started,  the  idea  at  that 
moment  most  definitely  impressed  upon  his  mind 
by  the  death  of  his  first  passionate  friend,  was  that 
of  mortality.  Flavian  was  gone  forever :  of  that 
there  was  no  manner  of  doubt;  and,  like  Flavian, 
Marius  too  would  go  at  his  appointed  time  — 
would  go,  or,  more  graphically,  would  go  out.  It 
was,  then,  not  with  any  hope  of  immortality  that 
Marius  turned  to  the  philosophers,  but  rather  with 
a  sojt,of_c.uriosity,  a  feeling  of  half-interest  arising 
in  the  very  numbness  or  deadness  of  pain.  And 
yet  his  mind  was  such  that  he  could  not  long  re- 
main intellectually  adrift,  and  whatever  had  been 
his  motive  in  reading  Heraclitus,  it  is  not  strange 
that  the  pregnant   enigmas   of  the   Ionian   had  a 


xxxviii  INTRODUCTION 

moving  effect  on  his  mind.  He  read  and  thought, 
or  rather  began  to  think,  began  to  construct  for 
himself  a  sort  of  intellectual  standing-ground.  It 
is  pointed  out  that  in  common  with  the  greater 
number,  he  misconceived  his  author,  or  at  least  it 
he  did  at  times  arrive  at  true  conception,  he  more 
often  halted  at  the  first  step,  the  easiest  to  appre- 
hend and  remember,  the  step,  in  fact,  indicated  by 
the  quotation  -dvra  pel  which  serves  as  motto  for 
the  conclusion.  It  was  at  this  point,  at  the  concep- 
tion of  the  changing  and  transitory  nature  of  all 
things,  that  Marius  fell  in  with  the  doctrine  of 
Aristippus,  a  ''  master  of  decorous  livmg,"  who 
gave  him  the  idea  of  accepting  even  the  hard  terms 
of  Heraclitus,  and  yet  aiming  to  *'  well  adorn  and 
beautify  these  fleeting  lives  into  an  exquisite  gra- 
ciousness  and  urbanity."  Experience  was  the 
thing:  truth  was  perhaps  illusory  and  impossible 
to  come  at,  but  direct  impression  must  be  real,  and 
to  be  constantly  able  to  apprehend  experience,  was 
something  which  might  well  offer  a  path  through 
life.  The  aim  was,  not  pleasure  as  so  many 
thought,  but  a  "  general  completeness  of  life,"  a 
Hfe  of  various  and  select  sensations.  "  H  he  could 
but  count  upon  the  present,  if  a  life  brief  at  best 
could  not  certainly  be  shown  to  conduct  one  any- 
where beyond  ftself,  if  men's  highest  curiosity  was 
indeed  so  persistently  bafifled  —  then,  with  the 
Cyrenaics  of  all  ages,  he  would  at  least  fill  up  the 
measure  of  that  present  with  vivid  sensations,  and 


INTRODUCTION  xxxix 

such  intelligent  apprehensions  as,  in  strength  and 

,  directness  and  their  immediately  realized  values  at 

I  the  bar  of  actual  experience,  are  most  like  sensa- 

-  tJOJA&J'     Still  even  such  experience,  to  be  perfect, 

must  not  be  isolated  and  discrete,  hence  the  artistic 

enjoyment  took  more  or  less  the  form  of  culture 

or  education,  such  a  form   of  culture  as,   Marius 

conceived,   might   even   be   as   though   a   kind   of 

religion. 

But  there  was  yet  one  thing  more  and  that  some- 
thing very  important.  What  kind  of  experience 
was  it  to  be?  What  kind  of  culture?  We  may, 
nowadays,  even  ask  what  kind  of  religion? 

Might  it  not  often  be  an  experience  which  would 
run  counter  to  ordinary  conditions  of  morality? 
To  an  eager,  wide-ranging  mind,  such  everyday 
conditions  might  seem  to  be  made  by  habit,  conven- 
tion :  the  necessary  course  of  life  might  easily  seem 
directly  across  them.  Or  might  not  lower  natures, 
following  vigorously  the  line  of  experience  most 
easily  conceived  by  them,  might  they  not  readily 
fall  into  the  bog  of  a  life  given  up  to  animal 
pleasures  ? 

In  these  last  queries  we  see  the  chief  difference 
between  the  Conclusion  and  the  eighth  and  ninth 
chapters  of  "  Marius."  The  philosophy  of  the 
young  Roman  was  the  same  as  that  philosophy 
which  had  been  criticised  in  London :  and  in  these 
last  words  Pater  had  his  answer  to  such  criticism. 
That  it  was  possible  that  such  a  view  of  life  might 


xl  INTRODUCTION 

not  always  lead  one  in  the  path  of  traditional  moral- 
ity he  allowed  readily  enough :  it  was  a  good  doc- 
trine for  the  strong,  but  there  were  some  who  might 
find  in  it  an  opportunity  for  inherent  evil  tendency. 
As  to  ''  hedonism,"  however,  he  took  pains  to  show 
that  the  philosophy  of  Marius  was  by  no  means 
chargeable  with  it,  provided,  that  is,  that  by 
"  hedonism  "  one  meant  a  life  which  makes  pleas- 
ure, in  its  lower  conception,  the  great  object  of 
life.  And  at  any  rate  it  was  not  pleasure,  even  of 
a  noble  kind,  but  rather  fullness  of  life  that  Marius 
sought.  He  was  a  youth  of  pure,  healthy  temper, 
given  up  to  vigorous,  even  severe,  studies, —  one 
can  see  that  he  would  easily  keep  a  true  line  be- 
tween youthful  antinomianism,  joyful  contravention 
of  traditional  morality  on  the  one  hand  and  any 
shameful  lowering  of  the  spirit  by  seeking  mere 
pleasure  of  a  baser  form.  Still,  in  spite  of  Pater's 
caveats,  it  is  clear  that  the  philosophy  of  Marius, 
like  that  of  the  Conclusion,  might  perhaps  be  taken 
as  guide  by  such  as  could  not  strictly  follow  it,  or, 
to  vary  the  figure,  by  such  as  desired  not  so  much 
a  lamp  to  their  feet  as  a  cloak  for  favorite  deeds  of 
darkness. 

So  much  might  still  be  urged  agaii^t  the  early 
philosophy  of  Marius,  against  the  new  form  into 
which  Pater  had  put  the  ideas  of  the  Conclusion. 
<;^But  there  is  still  one  more  point  to  notice  in  our 
criticism,  a  point  which  will  supply  us  with  an 
idea  of  how  to  go  forward  in  an  inquiry  as  to  Ibe 
development  of  Pater's  thinking. 


INTRODUCTION  xli 

'  Both  the  Conclusion  and  Marius  base  their 
theory  of  Hfe  upon  the  perpetual  flux  of  life,  the 
series  "  of  impressions  unstable,  flickering,  incon- 
sistent, which  burn  and  are  extinguished  with  our 
consciousness  of  them."  Both  also  hold  in  mind 
the  inevitable  end.  In  the  Conclusion  the  idea  is 
constant :  "  a  counted  number  of  pulses  only,"  ''  this 
too  short  day  of  frost  and  sun,"  "  we  have  an  inter- 
val and  then  our  place  knows  us  no  more," — the 
sense  of  the  inevitable  end  gives  a  character  that  at 
times  is  as  oppressive  as  the  motionless  air  on  a 
summer's  day.  In  ''  Marius,"  however,  there  is 
very  little  suggestion  of  this  unescapable  doom,  and 
that  the  more  curiously  that  the  development  of 
the  idea  came  to  Marius  immediately  after  the  death 
of  Flavian.  One  would  be  inclined  to  say  that  at 
just  such  a  time,  if  ever,  would  be  felt  the  heavy 
pressure  of  the  certain  stop  to  which  all  must  come. 
For  to  Marius  at  that  time  death  was  a  finality. 
'*  The  end  of  Flavian  came  Hke  a  final  revelation 
of  nothing  less  than  the  soul's  extinction.  Fla- 
vian had  gone  out  as  utterly  as  the  fire  among 
those  still  beloved  ashes."  Now,  then,  if  ever, 
would  the  sense  of  death  be  bitter  and  imperious, 
and  the  Epicurean  theory  would  be  perhaps  the 
only  escape  from  the  pressing  recurrence  of  a 
thought  too  painful  to  be  avoided.  Such  may  have 
been  Pater's  idea,  but  if  it  were  it  was  not  a  dom- 
inating element,  for  after  the  first  few  lines  we  get 
hardly    a   reminder   of   the    thought.     The    whole 


xlii  INTRODUCTION 

speculation  is  built  up  with  a  different  view, —  it  is 
not  a  shelter  in  the  face  of  necessary  and  impending 
death,  it  is  rather  a  preparation  for  availing  oneself 
to  the  utmost  of  all  the  possibilities  of  life.  It 
came  at  the  beginning  and  not  at  the  end  ^it  was 
not  the  final  Epicureanism  of  Marius,  it  was  the 
first  philosophy  of  a  young  man,  a  philosophy  from 
which  he  moved,  or,  more  exactly,  a  philosophy 
which  he  enlarged  and  developed  for  himself  under 
the  pressure  of  maturer  years  and  the  illumination 
of  new  experience^ 

Just  here  it  may  become  an  open  question  as  to 
how  far  ''  Marius  "  Js_atrtobiogi:aphi9/^  Undoubt- 
edly Marius  developed  the  new  Cyrenaicism  so 
that  it  had  little  left  of  its  original  character ;  it  may 
be  questionable  as  to  whether  Pater  himself  so 
developed  the  ideas  of  the  Conclusion.  And  yet 
when  we  consider  that  the  Conclusion  was  written 
at  the  age  of  thirty,  it  seems  foolish  to  think  for 
an  instant  that  Pater,  at  the  age  of  fifty-odd,  should 
not  have  modified  or  developed  his  ideas,  that  he 
should  not  have  withdrawn  from  them  or  advanced 
beyond  them.  Still  we  may  for  the  present  content 
ourselves  with  tracing  the  development  of  Marius. 

The  young  Roman  at  this  time  was  planning 
for  himself  a  life  precisely  like  Pater's  life,  namely, 
that  of  a  critic  of  art,  and  further,  a  critic  whose 
canons  were  precisely  those  presented  by  Pater  in 
the  Introduction  to  *'  The  Renaissance,"  just  as 
his  philosophy  was  very  like  its  Conclusion.     *'  To 


INTRODUCTION  xliii 

understand  the  various  forms  of  ancient  art  and 
thought,  the  various  forms  of  actual  human  feeUng 
(the  only  new  thing  in  the  world  almost  too  opulent 
in  what  was  old)  to  satisfy,  with  a  kind  of  scrupu- 
lous entirety,  the  claims  of  these  concrete  and  actual 
objects  on  his  sympathy,  his  intelligence,  his  senses 
—  to  '  pluck  out  the  heart  of  their  mystery,'  and  in 
turn  become  the  interpreter  of  them  to  others :  this 
had  now  defined  itself  for  Marius  as  a  very  nar- 
rowly practical  design :  it  determined  his  choice  of 
a  vocation  to  live  by."  Such  was  the  idea  with 
which  Marius  sought  the  city  of  Rome  to  take  a 
place  in  the  imperial  household. 

In  thus  leaving  the  seclusion  of  his  own  thoughts 
for  the  more  open  world  of  conflicting  opinions, 
Marius  exposed  himself  to  two  influences, —  one 
that  of  the  Stoicism  then  dominant  at  the  court  of 
Marcus  Aurelius,  the  other  that  of  Christianity, 
which  was  widely  permeating  society.  Stoicism 
Marius  regarded  openly  as  a  rival  theory,  and  even 
in  the  person  of  the  philosophic  Emperor  and  the 
persuasive  rhetorician  Fronto,  he  felt  it  to  be  a 
little  mediocre,  almost  vulgar.  Its  abnegations 
fitted  too  easily  into  incapacity.  Christianity,  on 
the  other  hand,  came  to  him  without  his  knowledge 
in  the  person  of  his  friend  Cornelius,  one  to  whom 
he  was  drawn  by  an  attraction  stronger  even  than 
had  drawn  him  to  Flavian,  one  well-fitted  by  his 
chaste  and  strong  youth  to  exercise  a  dominating 
if  unconscious  influence. 


xjiv  INTRODUCTION 

So  the  Epicureanism  of  Marius,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  gave  large  opportunity  for  difference  of 
direction,  allowed  him  to  draw  to  a  life  of  which 
itself  would  have  been  incapable.  The  chief  sug- 
gestions of  the  journey,  of  his  early  life  at  Rome, 
came  from  the  example  of  Cornelius,  the  teaching 
of  the  young  Knight  giving  a  color,  or  even  a 
direction,  to  the  speculation  and  the  self-conscious 
conduct  of  life  of  his  friend. 

What  then  was  the  influence  of  Christianity 
upon  the  philosophy  of  Marius,  and  what  the  influ- 
ence of  Stoicism? 

As  Marius  began  his  journey  to  Rome  at  the 
summons  of  the  Emperor,  his  first  days  were  filled 
by  a  free  delight  of  appreciation  and  reflection 
which  one  can  readily  imagine.  It  is  noteworthy 
however,  that  after  these  days  came  a  sort  of  reac- 
tion, in  which  ''  all  journeying  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown  came  suddenly  to  figure  as  a  mere 
foolish  truancy,"  in  which  he  felt  a  vague  sort  of 
homesickness,  the  need  of  some  companion  or  of 
some  society  which  was  his  and  to  which  he  be- 
longed. It  was  from  this  depression,  from  this  dis- 
trust and  loneliness,  that  he  was  rescued  by  the 
comfort  of  the  little  inn  and  the  voice  of  Cornelius. 

It  is  in  its  ample  answer  to  these  two  simple 
human  needs  that  Christianity  has  so  often  come  to 
those  who  were  intellectually  well  enough  satisfied 
with  one  or  another  philosophy.  The  mind  may 
be  sufificientlv  convinced,  but  the  heart  often  feels 


INTRODUCTION  xlv 

vaguely   that   the   one   thing  needful   is   not.     To 
many  lonely  souls  Christ  and  the  Christian  Church 
have  given  a  peace  and  joy  not  to  be  reached  by  . 
the  subtlest  and  most  accurate  definition  and  dis-    , 
crimination.     It    was    this,    and    no    philosophical    | 
solution  of  questions,  no  satisfying  development  of    ; 
ideas,  that  Christianity  offered  Marius.     Certainly    \ 
a  very  simple  matter. 

Simple  as  the  solution  was,  it  was  brought  about 
in  the  case  of  the  young  Roman  by  no  simple 
means.  The  influence  of  Cornelius,  foreshadowed 
at  the  moment  of  his  coming  into  his  friend's  life, 
never  affected  any  conscious  adaptation  in  the 
theory  which  became  so  effectually  modified. 
Emotional  in  its  nature,  it  had  to  be  translated  into 
other  terms,  and  hence  it  was  that  the  conscious 
appreciation  of  what  it  was  that  he  needed  came  to 
Marius,  not  from  Christianity  but  from  Stoicism. 
The  discourse  of  Pronto  left  him  dreaming  "  of 
that  august  community,  to  be  an  outlaw  from 
which,  to  be  foreign  to  the  manners  of  which,  was 
a  loss  so  much  greater  than  to  be  excluded  unto 
the  ends  of  the  earth  from  the  sovereign  Roman 
commonwealth."  And  it  was  from  Marcus  Aure- 
lius  that  he  gained  the  idea  of  that  "  self  not  him 
self,  beside  him  in  his  coming  and  going,"  "  that 
living  and  companionable  spirit  at  work  in  all 
things."  It  was  certainly  in  no  simple  way,  it  was 
by  very  subtle,  even  by  subconscious,  processes 
that  these  ideas  gained  their  place  in  his  careful 


xlvi  INTRODUCTION 

philosophy,  such  a  place  that  everything  else  had 
to  be  remodeled  to  harmonize  with  them.  It  was 
/by  his  building  upon  the  "  golden  mediocrity,"  the 
'  "  facile  optimism  "  of  Stoicism,  as  well  as  by  the 
I  companionship  of  Cornelius,  and  the  church  in  the 
\  house  of  Caecilia  that  he  finally  reached  the  appre- 
ciation of  a  true  theory  of  life.  Nor  w^as  the  full 
I  realization  of  that  theory  ever  reached  by  conscious 
thought :  Marius  was  made  aware  of  it  finally  only 
when  the  force  of  circumstances  gave  him  the  op- 
portunity for  an  act  of  self-sacrifice  of  which  he 
gladly  availed  himself. 
'  To  follow  out  carefully  the  development  of  the 
•"  New  Cyrenaicism  "  of  Marius  would  be  needless 
here.  It  was  left  behind :  two  points  of  destruc- 
tive criticism  soon  appeared;  first,  that  his  theory 
had  been  in  part  the  result  of  the  natural  antinomi- 
anism  of  youth ;  and  second,  that  it  had  attempted 
to  grasp  too  much  without  recognition  of  the  need 
in  a  well-ordered  life  of  a  certain  sacrifice.  These 
two  ideas  are  of  more  interest  just  here  than  the 
practical  outcome  of  the  life  of  Marius.  'Bo  far  as 
''  Marius  "  throws  any  light  on  Pater's"  attitude" 
toward  his  much-criticised  theory  of  the  place  of 
art  in  life,  we  may  say  this  much:  he  recognized 
that  it  had  its  faults,  that  it  was  not  broad  enough, 
and  that  it  had  been  carried  somewhat  on  its  nar- 
row way  by  the  force  of  youthful  joy  in  individual- 
ity. But  when  we  ask  ourselves  further,  and  look 
to  see  what  was  substituted  therefor,  we  find  little. 


INTRODUCTION  xlvii 

The  development  of  the  thought  and  life  of  Marius 
toward  Christianity  gives  us  a  hint,  perhaps,  on 
Pater's  •  own  ideas,  but  not  much  as  to  his  own 
thinking  on  those  matters  which  are  to  our  present 
purpose. 

Whatever  may  have  been  Pater's  ideas  on  these 
matters,  one  thing  is  certain  enough :  namely,  that 
he  did  not  see  fit  to  express  them  in  any  definite 
form.  Turned  into  the  direction,  it  may  well  be, 
by  his  striking  success  in  "  Marius  the  Epicurean," 
his  imagination  worked  in  the  vein  suggested  by 
"  The  Child  in  the  House."  "An  Imaginary  Por- 
trait "  that  had  been  called ;  his  next  volume  was 
a  collection  of  four  such  portraits.  In  fact,  for  the 
four  years  following  ''  Marius  "  he  seems  to  have 
written  little  beside  these  sketches  of  ideal  figures. 
*'  A  Prince  of  Court  Painters,"  that  is  to  say,  Wat- 
teau,  "  Sebastian  van  Storck,"  "  Denys  TAuxer- 
rois,"  the  one  put  into  our  selection,  ''  Duke  Carl 
von  Rosenmold,"  "  Gaston  de  Latour,"  originally 
planned  as  a  companion  to  ''  Marius,"  but  never 
finished,  ''  Emerald  Uthwart,"  and  ''  Hippolytus  ^ 
Veiled,"  a  realization  of  the  tragedy  of  Euripides, 
and  "  Apollo  in  Picardy," —  in  all  these,  whatever 
ideas  on  the  relation  of  art  to  life  were  presented 
must  be  sought  for  in  the  personalities. 

And  in  these  *'  Imaginary  Portraits  " —  written, 
not  with  a  critical  or  didactic  purpose,  but  for,  the 
pleasure  of  putting  some  imagined  life  into  per- 
manent form  —  we  can  distinguish  easily  what  may 


xlviii  INTRODUCTION 

be  regarded  as  Pater's  typical  figure,  perhaps  the 
figure  which  was  a  concrete  exhibition  of  the  ideas 
which  he  held  in  theory : —  a  youth  set  apart  in  a 
measure  from  his  fellows  by  greater  sensitiveness 
to  surroundings  and  greater  disposition  to  reflec- 
tion, a  little  worldlet  thrown  ofif,  as  it  were,  in  the 
revolution  of  the  great  world,  continuing  to  revolve 
in  the  same  general  system,  but  having  an  individ- 
uality of  its  own,  or  more  accurately  a  center  of 
gravity  of  its  own.  Florian  Deleal,  Marius,  Sebas- 
tian, Carl  von  Rosenmold,  Gaston,  Hippolytus, 
Emerald  —  the  generalization  includes  them  all  ex- 
cept Anthony  Watteau,  the  only  historical  figure 
among  them,  and  the  medieval  avatars  of  Dionysus 
and  Apollo,  which  were  the  outcome  of  quite  a 
different  idea.  A  life  continually  absorbing  from 
without  the  material  for  continual  evolution  from 
within,  that  is  the  ideal  presented  in  various  forms. 
And  it  will  be  remarked  that  no  one  of  all  these 
gracious  figures  can  be  regarded  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  principles  of  the  Conclusion,  Watteau 
comes  the  nearest.  Of  him  it  was  at  first  written : 
*'  The  rudeness  of  his  home  has  turned  his  feeling 
for  even  the  simpler  graces  of  life  into  a  physical 
want,  like  hunger  or  thirst  which  might  come  to 
greed;  and  methinks  he  perhaps  overvalues  those 
things."  Later  the  diarist  goes  on:  "Those 
worldly  graces  he  seemed  as  a  young  lad  almost 
to  hunger  and  thirst  for,  as  if  truly  the  mere  adorn- 
ments of  life  were  necessaries :  he  takes  them  as  if 


INTRODUCTION  xlix 

he  had  been  used  to  them.  And  there  is  something 
noble  —  shall  I  say  ?  —  in  his  half-disdainful  way 
of  serving  himself  with  what  he  still,  as  I  think, 
secretly  values  over  much."  But  Watteau  makes 
an  advance :  he  never  pretended  that  the  delicate 
beauty  that  was  necessary  to  him  was  really  suffi- 
cient for  him ;  "  that  delicate  life  of  Paris  "  painted 
so  excellently,  with  so  much  spirit,  partly  because 
after  all,  he  looked  down  upon  it  or  despised  it  or 
knew  it  was  but  a  means  too  often  taken  for  an  end. 
He  was  indeed  "  always  a  seeker  after  something 
in  the  world,  that  there  is  in  no  satisfying  measure 
or  not  at  all ;  "  so  says  the  diarist,  but  it  is  likely 
enough  that  what  he  was  seeking  for  might  really 
have  been  found  by  seeking  in  another  way.  With 
the  others  each  enjoyment  was  by  no  means  the 
highest  satisfaction  of  a  passing  moment,  which 
must  be  enjoyed  or  forever  lost,  but  rather  some- 
thing of  which  the  chief  value  was  in  its  outcome. 
So  it  was  also  in  the  house  of  M.  de  Crozat  that 
Watteau  found  so  charming.  The  antiquities, 
"  beautiful  curiosities  of  all  sorts  ...  are  ar- 
ranged all  around  one," — how?  "  so  that  the  influ- 
ence, the  genius  of  those  things  may  imperceptibly 
play  upon,  and  enter  into  one,  and  form  what  one 
does."  ^  In  a  few  words,  then,  art  is  not  an  enjoy- 
ment merely,  it  is  an  educator.  Life  and  character 
are  to  be  moulded  by  it.  The  end  of  life  is  not 
experience  only :  it  is  education. 

4  .    ' 


I  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  the  view  of  certain  philosophers  on  Beauty 
that  a  thing  may  be  beautiful  if  we  find  in  it  imme- 
diate enjoyment,  while  those  things  which  are  not 
immediate  in  their  happy  result  are  rather  to  be 
called  good.  According  to  such  a  view  aesthetics 
would  be  a  matter  of  present  values  and  ethics  a 
matter  of  future  values,  [li  this  distinction  be  cor- 
rectly made  between  the  two  words  we  should  say 
that  while  the  Conclusion  to  "  The  Renaissance  " 
was  aesthetic  in  tone,  Pater's  later  idea  was  largely, 
indeed,  chiefly  ethicajC^  For  the  Conclusion  had 
distinctly  the  appreciation  of  immediate  experience 
for  its  own  sake  without  view  to  future  possibilities. 
In  the  Imaginary  Portraits,  however,  the  beauty 
of  surrounding  circumstances  is  almost  always  re- 
garded as  being  an  educative  force. 

Actually  the  distinction  should  not  be  pressed 
so  far.  Undoubtedly  even  in  his  earlier  days  Pater 
thought  of  art  as  a  formative  agent  and  in  his  later 
thought  it  is  tke  pure  enjoyment  of  art  w-liich 
works  unconsciously  in  its  ethical  function.  But 
he  certainly  changed  the  point  he  chose  to  empha- 
size and  that  was  the  important  matter. 

It  is  not  much  of  an  achievement,  perhaps,  to 
conceive  or  present  the  idea  that  beauty,  and  so  art, 
is  an  educator.  Ruskin  had  something  of  the  same 
idea.  Ruskin,  however,  had  it  with  a  great  dii¥er- 
erence,  for  he  held  art  to  be  not  merely  educative 
but  didactic.     He  held  that  in  literature,  painting, 


INTRODUCTION  li 

sculpture,  we  should  actually  find  something,  often 
precepts  even,  that  should  be  of  value  in  deter- 
mining conduct.  Some  such  idea,  too,  though  not 
precisely  the  same,  had  Arnold.  ^The .  originality 
of  Pater'^Jdea  did  not  lie  in  the  fact  that  he  gave 
ethics  a  place  in  aesthetics ;  it  lay  in  the  way  in  \ 
which  he  conceived  that  aesthetic  enjoyment  might  j 
itself  be  a  moral  agent. 

^The  two  points  of  importance  here  would  seem 
to  be  the  end  to  which  art  educates  and  the  means 
by  which  it  proceeds.  On  the  first  of  these  mat- 
ters Pater  says  little,  for  a  reason  that  will  appear : 
The  second  is  of  more  importance  because  Pater's 
solution  is  very  characteristic;  it  involves  his  ideas 
on  style. 

To  many  readers  the  matter  of  style  is  the  great 
thing  about  Pater.  With  Pater  him.self  it  was 
probably  not  so, —  that  is,  he  is  almost  always  occu- 
pied with  other  matters  when  he  writes  about  any- 
body else.  Had  he  regarded  style  as  a  matter  of 
the  importance  given  to  it  by  his  admirers,  it  seems 
probable  that  he  would  have  said  more  about  it  in 
speaking  of  other  men.  Still  he  must  have  paid  a 
great  deal  of  attention  to  his  own  mode  of  expres- 
sion, and  certainly  his  style  has  been  greatly  ad- 
mired. But  hence  arises  the  curious  fact  that  some 
who  read  with  great  pleasure  Pater's  first  work, 
find  in  his  last  much  that  they  can  only  with  diffi- 
culty even  understand.     It  is  curious  that  a  man 


lii  INTRODUCTION 

who  wote  so  clearly  and  brilliantly  in  ''  The  Renais- 
sance shouldever  have  written  sentences  as  in- 
volved as  man^of  those  in  "  Plato  and  Platonism." 
The  fact,  however,  puts  us  on  the  right  path. 

Are  we  to  regard  style  as  a  way  of  writing,  per- 
haps a  very  excellent  way  of  writing,  which  will 
be  discovered  early  in  life,  it  may  be,  and  then  ad- 
hered to  always  as  the  best?  We  may,  certainly, 
and  many  men  have  done  so.  But  the  idea  involves 
a  curious  corollary,  namely,  that  the  first  idea  was 
the  best.  Such  seems  to  have  been  the  case  of 
Macaulay,  who,  in  the  essay  on  Milton,  exhibited 
a  remarkable  style,  which  he  modified,  but  never 
changed.  Pater,  however,  was  a  man  very  differ- 
ent  from  Macaulay.  He  changed  his  opinions  on 
some  things,  as  we  have  seen :  what  was  the  chanc<i 
that  he  would  not  change  them  on  style? 

Fortunately  we  have  from  Pater  not  only  example 
of  style,  but  precept  as  well.  Rather  unfortu- 
nately, however,  the  best  known  example  was  writ- 
ten fifteen  years  or  more  before  the  precept,  and 
thought  upon  it  seems  to  show  that  it  had  different 
principles  at  bottom.  The  Conclusion  indicates  the 
fluent  character  of  life,  impresses  the  value  of  a 
fluent  character  of  thought.  But  what,  save  here 
and  there,  less  fluent  than  the  style?  I'he  style  is 
brilliant,  but  definite  and  set.  The  Conclusion  ad- 
vises against  a  facile  orthodoxy  of  opinion,  but  it 
offers  an  orthodoxy  (though  by  no  means  a  facile 
one)  of  expression.     In  ''  Plato  and  Platonism,"  on 


INTRODUCTION  liii 

the  contrary,  we  have  something  quite  different: 
there  is  plenty  of  fluency  of  thought,  but  there  is 
also  a  fluidity,  we  might  even  call  it,  of  expression. 
There  is  a  diversity  of  structure,  a  particular  ac- 
commodation to  the  very  manner  of  the  thought,  a 
careful  naturalness  almost  colloquial.  •  It  is  almost 
as  though  a  glittering  bit  of  ice  had  melted  into 
plain  water.  Read  the  passage  in  the  Conclusion 
beginning,  "  Or  if  we  begin  "  (it  is  on  p.  20),  and 
then  read  the  following  from  chapter  I  of  ''  Plato 
and  Platonism."  The  subject  is  very  nearly  the 
same,  whereby  the  difference  in  style  becomes  more 
apparent. 

*'  Surface  we  say;  but  was  there  anything  beneath 
it?  That  was  what  to  the  majority  of  his  hearers, 
his  readers,  Heraclitus,  with  an  eye,  perhaps,  on 
practice,  seemed  to  deny.  Perpetual  motion,  alike 
in  things,  and  in  men's  thoughts  about  them, —  the 
sad,  self-conscious,  philosophy  of  HeracHtus,  like 
one,  knowing  beyond  his  years,  in  this  barely 
adolescent  world  which  he  is  so  eager  to  instruct, 
makes  no  pretence  to  be  able  to  restrain  that.  Was 
not  the  very  essence  of  thought  itself  also  such  per- 
petual motion?  A  baffling  transition  from  the  dead 
past,  alive  one  moment  since,  to  a  present,  itself 
deceased  in  turn  ere  we  can  say.  It  is  here?  A 
keen  analyst  of  the  facts  of  nature  and  mind,  a 
master  presumably  of  all  the  knowledge  that  then 
there  was,  a  vigorous  definer  of  thoughts,  he  does 


liv  INTRODUCTION 

but  refer  the  superficial  movement  of  all  persons 
and  things  around  him  to  deeper  and  still  more 
masterful  currents  of  universal  change,  stealthily 
withdrawing  the  apparently  solid  earth  itself  from 
beneath  one's  feet.  The  principle  of  disintegration, 
the  incoherency  of  fire  or  fiood  (for  Heraclitus  these 
are  but  very  lively  instances  of  movements,  subtler 
yet  more  wasteful  still)  are  inherent  in  the  primary 
elements  alike  of  matter  and  of  the  soul,  ^l^^ec  r.ou 
^HpdxXeiTo^^  says  Socrates  in  the  Cratylus,  "^Vt 
Tzd-^Ta  xwpsi  xat  oddkw  iiivet.  But  the  principle  of 
lapse,  of  waste,  was,  in  fact,  in  one's  self.  No 
one  has  ever  passed  twice  over  the  same  stream. 
Nay,  the  passenger  himself  is  without  identity. 
Upon  the  same  stream  at  the  same  moment  we  do, 
and  do  not  embark :  for  we  are,  and  are  not :  el/zt  v  re 
xai  oox  eliiev.  And  this  rapid  change,  if  it  did  not 
make  all  knowledge  impossible,  made  it  wholly 
relative,  of  a  kind,  that  is  to  say,  valueless  in  the 
judgment  of  Plato." 

The  difference  in  style  will  strike  anybody.  In 
the  passage  from  the  Conclusion  we  have  definite 
statements,  often  conditional,  it  is  true,  and  compli- 
cated, gaining  a  closer  approximation  by  special 
example,  alternative  figure,  or  parenthetic  clause, 
but  clear  cut  and  definite,  for  all  that.  In  the  ex- 
tract from  "  Plato  and  Platonism,"  however,  we 
have  almost  no  definite  statement  at  all :  Pater  re- 
considers and  questions,  he  tells  us  how  it  seems, 


INTRODUCTION  Iv 

he  tells  us  what  the  meaning  is  not,  he  queries,  he 
quotes  and  explains  and  quotes  again,  only  two  or 
three  times  in  a  dozen  sentences  does  he  make  any 
assured  statement,  and  even  then  he  ends  with 
some  participial  addition,  as  we  are  apt  to  in  con- 
versation, or  puts  in  an  explanatory  comment.  The 
first  passage  is  brilliant  and  clear,  but  the  other  is 
very  different,  not  brilliant,  possibly  not  wholly 
clear,  but  alive,  persuasive,  intimate. 

Surely  this  is  a  very  different  kind  of  expression. 
The  ice  has  melted,  and  so  far  it  seems  doubtless  a 
loss.  Yet,  to  be  fantastic  for  a  moment,  although 
an  iceberg  is  surely  a  very  lovely  thing,  yet  how 
much  lovelier  are  all  the  varied  forms  of  water, — 
still  reflection,  falling  cataract,  ripples,  rolling  or 
dashing  surf,  rain,  rainbow  and  cloud.  And 
whether  more  or  less  lovely  —  for  the  figure  is 
really  misleading  —  how  much  nearer  the  very 
thought  itself  is  this  vague,  indefinite  expression, 
than  the  clear-cut  brilliancy  which  is,  in  its  own 
way,  very  desirable. 

It  is  probable  that  every  man's  way  of  writing 
would  appear,  if  we  could  analyze  it,  to  be  the 
necessary  expression,  not  of  himself,  but  of  his 
manner  of  thought.  Thus  Macaulay  was  a  man 
who  perceived  likenesses  and  unlikenesses ;  he 
thought  largely  by  contrasts  and  generalizations. 
His  style,  therefore,  abounds  in  all  forms  of  anti- 
thesis   and    parallel.      Carlyle    was    a    man    who 


Ivi  INTRODUCTION 

thought  largely  by  what  he  would  himself  have 
called  "  inward  vision."  His  style,  then,  is  made 
up  of  all  forms  of  expression  based  upon  the  sense 
of  sight,  not  only  apostrophe,  interrogation,  and 
exclamation,  but  in  all  such  concrete  modes  as  per- 
sonification. 

)feo  with  Pater.  At  first  he  proceeded  from  one 
clearly  perceived  position  to  another;  he  not  only 
knew  where  he  was,  but  he  knew^  whither  he  was 
going;  he  therefore  expressed  himself  in  clear-cut 
and  definite  statements.  Finally,  however,._aiter 
years  ol^experience^he  expressed  himself  largely 
by  questions,  suggestions^  queries,  suppositions, 
possibilities.  He  ceased  probably  to  have  the  defi- 
nite assurance  of  his  earHer  years  and  became  more 
or  less  of  a  seeker.  Hi^  writings  became  more 
exactly  essaysr^  Essays,  indeed,  they  had  always 
been  in  common  parlance,  as  much  essays  as  the 
celebrated  writings  of  Macaulay  that  go  by  that 
name.  But  they  had  very  little  of  what  we  think 
of  as  the  essay  character,  the  character  of  the  essays 
of  Montaigne,  of  which  Pater  writes  in  "  Plato  and 
Platonism,"  or  of  the  essays  of  Lamb.  Yet  we 
may  observe,  in  reading  what  Pater  says  (in  1878) 
of  the  essay  character,  of  "  the  Montaignesque  ele- 
ment "  of  Lamb  is  not  exactly  what  he  says  of  the 
essay  character,  the  Montaignesque,  in  writing  later 
of  the  dialogues  of  Plato.  In  the  first  he  says  that 
"below  all  more  superficial  tendencies  the  real  mo- 


INTRODUCTION  Ivii 

jiv^is  the  desire  of  self-portraiture/'  but  in  the  sec- 
ond he  thinks  of  the  essay  rather  as  giving  Mon- 
taigne "  precisely  the  Uterary  form  necessary  to  a 
mind  for  which  truth  itself  is  but  a  possibility,  real- 
izable not  as  a  general  conclusion,  but  rather  as  the 
elusive  efifect  of  a  particular  personal  experience." 
That  is  not  the  same  thing  and  the  difference  would 
show  that  as  time  went  on  a  different  feeling  pre- 
dominated. Not  that  Lamb  was  not  subjective 
enough,  or  Pater  either,  even  in  his  early  writing, 
to  some  degree.  But  little  note  is  taken  of  that 
conception  of  the  essay  as  the  means  of  expressing 
"  that  long  dialogue  with  oneself,  that  dialectic  pro- 
jcess  "  which  may  never  reach  a  definite  and  unques- 
tioned end,  but  may  be  coextensive  with  life.  If 
he  wrote  essays  at  first,  it  was  because  the  essay 
was  the  normal  form  into  which  any  treatment 
would  fall  that  was  not  systematic  and  comprehen- 
sive, but  later  in  life  he  had  the  other  idea  so  fully 
in  mind  that  the  different  parts  of  "  Gaston  de  La- 
tour  "  and  ''  Plato  and  Platonism  "  were  really,  as 
a  rule,  essays  independent  of  each  other,  though 
connected  in  subject,  which,  indeed,  were,  in  some 
cases,  published  separately. 

Something  of  this  sort,  although  not  precisely 
the  same  thing,  may  be  found  in  the  theory  of  style 
expressed  in  the  well-known  essay,  written  in  the 
latter  part  of  his  career  as  a  writer.  Where  it  is 
said  above  that  style  is  the  expression  of  a  man's 


Iviii  INTRODUCTION 

manner  of  thought,  Pater  says  that  art  comes  when 
we  have  the  transcription,  not  of  mere  fact,  but  of 
the  artist's  sense  of  fact,  a  very  accurate  transcrip- 
tion of  his  sense  of  fact,  Hke  a  tracing  (to  use 
Pater's  own  figure)  of  some  very  exquisite  and 
dehcate  drawing. 

'^CA.rt  gives  us.  Pater  would  say,  the  artist's  sense 
of  the  fact,  of  the  world.  If  we  study  art,  we  gain 
an  appreciation  of  that  sense.  And  if  we  are  further 
influenced  in  our  thinking  and  being  by  art,  we  are 
influenced  by  the  sense  of  fact  of  such  artists  as 
we  study.  And  such  art  is  good  if  the  sense  of 
fact  be  true;  and  great,  as  well  as  good,  if  it  be 
devoted  to  certain  large  aims,  well  set  down  in  the 
last  words  of  that  essay. 

Such  is  the  way  art  educates.  The  sense  of  life, 
of  the  facts  of  the  world,  passes  from  certain  chosen 
souls  to  us;  we  are  ourselves,  insensibly  perhaps, 
moulded  by  it ;  we  are  different  from  what  we  would 
have  been  without  it  It  is  not  that  culture  teaches 
us  about  conduct,  or  that  great  art  is  didactic:  it 
is  that  from  art  we  get  a  certain  sense  of  the  world, 
a  certain  sense  of  things,  which  art  has  directly 
from  great  artists. 

Shall  we  try  to  state  any  particular  end  of  life 
which  such  a  methodology  will  enable  us  to  attain  ? 
In  the  Conclusion,  Pater  said  that  experience  itself 
was  the  end:  in  the  essay  on  Wordsworth  about 
the  same  time,  he  looks  at  the  matter  from  another 


INTRODUCTION  lix 

point  of  view  and  says  that  contemplation  is  the 
end-in-itself.  In  "  Marius  "  we  got  to  something  a 
little  different,  if  not  quite  as  definite. 

Nowhere  again,  to  tell  the  truth,  does  Pater  give 
us  any  definite  answer.  The  problem  was  a  never- 
failing  source  of  interest  to  him.  He  was  fairly 
sure  of  his  solution  in  earlier  years ;  in  **  Marius  " 
a  little  less  clear  in  his  mind.  His  third  attempt 
seems  to  have  broken  down  in  the  unfinished 
"  Gaston  de  Latour." 

Five  chapters  of  ''  Gaston  de  Latour  "  appeared 
in  the  year  in  which  the  essay  on  Style  was  pub- 
lished. Gaston  was  originally  conceived  as  a  sort 
of  companion  figure  to  Marius.  Marius  was  a 
youth  who  stood  in  the  midst  of  one  of  those  de- 
cadent civilizations  that  are  dissolving  to  give  place 
to  something  new.  The  change  from  the  antique 
world  was  such  a  time  and  so  was  the  change  from 
the  medieval  world  to  the  modern.  Gaston  de 
Latour  was  a  figure  of  the  later  Renaissance. 

But  however  conceived,  the  character  was  never 
fully  drawn.  Born,  like  Marius,  like  Florian,  like 
Emerald  Uthwart  in  all  the  definite  surroundings 
of  an  old  family  estate,  the  young  Frenchman  turns 
naturally  to  the  cathedral  school  of  Chartres. 
What  was  to  be  his  course  I  cannot  say.  He  was 
roused  out  of  any  settling  down  into  the  past  by  the 
fresh  "  modernity "  of  Ronsard.  His  youthful 
ardor  received  a  check  in  the  sceptic  indifference 
of  Montaigne.    He  stands  a  vague  spectator  of  the 


Ix  INTRODUCTION 

events  and  ideas  represented  by  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholemew  and  the  ''  Lower  Pantheism  "  of 
Giordano  Bruno.     Probably  Pater  never  conceived 
the  development  of  character  with  the  definiteness 
needed  even  for  his  own  indefinite  manner  of  pre- 
sentation.   It  is  not  unnatural  then  that  the  style  of 
j    the  fragment,  and  especially  that  of  the  chapter  on 
\  Suspended  Judgments,  should  be  more  than  any- 
thing else  that  he  wrote  suggestive,  tentative,  ap- 
Iproximating. 

In  ''  Gaston  de  Latour  "  we  get  no  solution  to 
the  question.  It  was  but  a  few  years  after  "  Mar- 
ius,"  there  was  no  reason  why  there  should  have 
been  any  serious  modification  of  the  view  there  pre- 
sented. 

£^nce  again  did  Pater  have  a  chance,  perhaps  de- 
liberately made  his  chance,  to  put  in  unified  form  his 
theory  of  art  and  life.  This  time  he  chose  the  form 
not  of  a  novel  but  of  criticism,  although  with  his 
old  dislike  of  abstract  expression  he  by  no  means 
tried  to  set  down  systematically  any  cold  theory  of 
aesthetic  or  ethic.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether 
he  looked  upon  ''  Plato  and  Platonism  "  as  an  at- 
tempt to  deal  with  an  objective  problem^ut  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  book  will  always  have 
more  interest  for  the  student  of  Pater  than  for  the 
student  of  Plato. 

"^^ater  had  always,  as  has  been  said,  been  drawn 
to  the  Platonic  philosophy  as  it  had  appeared  in 
one  or  another  Neo-Platonist  —  Pico  della  Miran- 


INTRODUCTION  Ixi 

dola,  Giordano  Bruno,  Coleridge  —  had  always 
been  rather  a  Platonist  than  an  Aristotelian  in  the 
sense  in  which  a  man  must  be  one  or  the  other, 
must  be  alive  chiefly  to  the  things  of  the  spirit  or 
to  the  things  of  actual  experience,  had  indeed,  it  is 
said,  constantly  read  Plato  with  the  undergraduates 
of  Brasenose  (passmen  I  believe)  so  that  his  notes 
on  Plato,  if  he  had  any,  must  have  covered  many 
years. /A  book  on  Plato,  then,  the  outcome  of  so 
much  varied  thought  and  feeling,  could  hardly  help 
being  a  document  for  the  illustrating  quite  as  much 
the  life  of  Pater  himself  as  that  of  the  Greek  philoso- 
pher whom  he  actually  resembled  so  slightly. 

Natural,  or  not,  that  is  what  the  book  is. 
Grecians  and  philosophers  may  read  it  and  criticize 
it  with  a  view  to  what  it  says  on  its  subject.  The 
general  reader,  even  the  student  of  literature,  will 
be  more  likely  to  read  it  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously as  a  commentary  upon  its  author.  Pater 
may  have  realized  the  fact  or  not;  however  it  was, 
he  could  hardly  have  avoided  putting  into  the  book 
much  of  himself,  of  his  own  thinking  as  well  as  of 
his  own  way  of  thinking. 

It  could  hardly  have  been  by  accident  that  the 
book  begins  with  the  Tzdvra  ps't  of  Heraclitus. 
That  had  been  Pater's  starting-point,  too,  or  rather 
his  corollaries  to  that  theorem  as  set  down  in  the 
Conclusion  had  been  the  means  of  putting  him  be- 
fore the  eye  of  the  world.  And  he  like  Heraclitus 
had    been    misunderstood :    Heraclitus    *'  we    may 


Ixii  INTRODUCTION 

understand  "  (he  says)  had  meant  chiefly  to  "  re- 
duce that  world  of  chaotic  mutation  to  cosmos,  to 
the  unity  of  a  reasonable  order  "  but  men  had  been 
deaf  to  that  harmony  and  had  run  away  with  the 
more  obvious  idea  which  had  seemed  to  them  so 
wicked  and  sceptical,  they  had  been  taken  by  "  the 
paradoxical  and  negative  tendency  there,  in  natural 
collusion,  as  it  was,  with  the  destructiveness  of  un- 
disciplined youth ;  that  sense  of  rapid  dissolution, 
which,  according  to  one's  temperament  and  one's 
luck  in  things,  might  extinguish,  or  kindle  all  the 
more  eagerly,  an  interest  in  the  mere  phenomena 
of  existence,  of  one's  so  hasty  passage  through  the 
world."  Pater  himself  had  presumably  not  had  in 
mind  any  definite  cosmos  or  order,  when  he  wrote 
the  Conclusion,  but  he  had  had  in  mind  an  idea 
different  from  that  which  the  world  had  received, 
and  because  of  that  misconception  he  had  with- 
drawn the  Conclusion  until  he  could  feel  sure  it 
would  be  better  comprehended. 

Nor  was  the  next  of  the  pre-Socratic  influences 
entirely  strange  to  Pater  himself.^  The  doctrine  of 
rest,  the  philosophy  of  Parmenides,  the  theory  that 
thought  and  being  are  one, —  this  too  in  one  form 
or  another  had  already  appeared  in  Pater's  writings, 
for  instance  in  the  essay  on  Wordsworth  (p.  42)  but 
more  notably  in  the  Imaginary  Portrait  of  Sebastian 
van  Storck,  that  singular  tale  of  a  life  so  unlike  the 
life  that  seems  congenial  to  Pater,  the  life  of  Marius 
or  of  Gaston  de  Latour.    Yet  the  young  Dutchman 


INTRODUCTION  Ixiii 

was  in  his  own  extravagant  way  a  follower  of  the 
life  of  the  spirit,  though  he  followed  it  with  "  that 
strange  passion  for  nonentity  "  which  Pater  notes 
in  his  comment  on  the  doctrine  of  Parmenides,  as 
appearing  often  in  the  history  of  human  thought, 
Indian,  Platonic,  Mystic,  as  well  as  "  in  the  hard 
and  ambitious  intellectualism  of  Spinoza;  a  doc- 
trine of  pure  repellant  substance  —  substance  in 
vacuo,  to  be  lost  in  which,  however,  would  be  the 
proper  consummation  of  the  transitory  individual 
life."  When  he  wrote  that.  Pater  must  have  had  in 
mind  not  only  Spinoza  but  the  figure  he  had  him- 
self created  (drawn  in  a  measure  after  Spinoza)  not 
long  before,  of  the  cold  thoughtful  young  aristocrat 
of  the  intellect,  who  though  wholly  unlike  Marius 
in  his  thinking,  had  at  least  resembled  him  —  it  is 
the  semi-sceptical  commentary  upon  both  doc- 
trines —  in  the  way  his  intellectual  logic  had  finally 
melted  into  the  logic  of  passion  which  had  given  the 
necessary  completion  to  his  life. 

And  if  we  find  Pater  in  his  dealings  with  Hera- 
clitus  and  Parmenides,  no  less  is  he  clearly  apparent 
in  the  third  chapter,  that  on  Pythagoras  and  the 
doctrine  of  number,  or  more  comprehensibly  it 
might  as  well  be  called  the  doctrine  of  rhythm,  of 
music,  of  harmony.  Music  he  had  already  declared 
in  '*  The  School  of  Giorgione  "  to  be  ''  the  typical, 
or  ideally  consummate  art,"  the  true  type  or  meas- 
ure of  perfected  art,  because  in  it  form  and  subject 
were  so  wholly  one.     All  the  other  arts,  he  there 


Ixiv  INTRODUCTION 

said,  approximated  to  music,  and  we  apprehend 
them  as  arts  when  we  appreciate  their  musical  char- 
acter. But  this  musical  character  which  he  seeks 
to  explain  in  that  essay,  it  is  the  unheard  music 
which  now  in  studying  Pythagoras  as  an  influence 
on  Plato,  he  sees  as  the  type  or  intermediary  of  an 
independently  existing  harmony,  and  which  be- 
comes as  the  book  goes  on,  the  type  of  the  true 
ideal  of  the  soul. 

And  so  we  might  go  through  the  book  almost 
chapter  by  chapter,  and  show  how  everywhere 
Pater  was  bringing  to  bear  some  old  thought  oi 
his  own,  a  thought  suggested  originally  perhaps  bv 
Plato  himself  and  now  returning  enriched  by  inde- 
pendent life  to  illustrate  its  origin.  So  we  should 
see  in  Socrates  the  teacher  whose  mind  was  benr 
intensely  upon  young  men  whom  he  would  have 
done  good  to  chiefly  by  arousing  them  to  an  inter- 
est in  themselves.  We  should  see  in  the  Sophists 
(those  first  professors  of  the  art  of  style)  teachers 
who  offered  some  pretended  set  of  literary  rules  to 
the  student  instead  of  giving  him  that  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  thought,  which  to  follow  closely, 
surely,  was  the  only  foundation  of  a  true  art  of 
writing.  We  should  see  in  the  chapter  on  the 
Genius  of  Plato,  (the  extract  in  this  selection:  see 
especially  p.  158,)  that  same  theory  of  criticism 
announced  in  ''  The  Renaissance  "  that  knowledge 
as  well  as  beauty  inheres  in  the  particular  thing.. 


INTRODUCTION  Ixv 

that  it  was  only  because  he  knew  so  well  the  ma- 
terial world  that  Plato  conceived  his  world  of  idea. 
We  might  almost  imagine  that  Pater's  whole  pre- 
vious thinking  had  been  drawn  from  Plato,  were 
it  not  otherwise  plain  that  much  of  it  came  to  be 
what  it  was  in  other  ways. 

But  with  all  this,  with  the  constant  reminiscence 
of  Pater's  earlier  thought  here  and  there  in  the 
book,  we  may  still  ask  what  it  tells  us  that  is 
clear  and  definite  on  this  question  which  we  have 
pursued  so  unsatisfactorily,  as  to  the  end  toward 
which  our  culture  should  tend,,^  Follow  Pater 
from  the  beginning,  or  Plato  either,  and  so  far 
all  is  merely  metlmd..  As  soon  as  we  left  the 
idea  that  the  wisest  filled  the  moments  of  life 
with  art  and  song,  merely  for  the  sake  of  experi- 
ence itself,  we  needed  some  other  aim,  and  so 
far  at  least  Pater  has  offered  us  none.  Art 
we  now  understand  is  a  means,  an  influence 
whereby  we  may  mould  our  souls  according 
to  the  sense  of  fact  which  the  select  souls  of  the 
world  have  perpetuated  in  their  art.  We  may  ap- 
preciate the  fleeting  character  of  life  and  so  make 
the  most  of  experience,  we  may  be  satisfied  to  think 
rather  than  do,  we  may  begin  to  perceive  that  there 
is  harmony  abo^it  us  and  that  we  have  part  therein, 
we  may  be  sure  that  we  have  our  finger  on  the 
artist's  pulse  where  we  note  his  style,  we  may  live  in 
the  concrete,  even,  eschewing  abstractions,  theories, 
facile  orthodoxies  ;  still  there  is  yet  one  thing  more, 
in  fact  we  may  imagine  it  the  only  thing,  for  if  we 
6 


Ixvl  INTRODUCTION 

do  not  know  Why,  what  is  the  good  of  a  thousand 
Hows?  Is  it  merely  chance  that  will  indicate  the 
application  of  so  much  method?  What  artists  shall 
influence  us?  What  sort  of  harmony  is  about  us? 
What  concrete  things  are  most  worthy  our  confi- 
dence? There  are  a  dozen  questions  that  spring  up 
at  once,  a  question  for  every  statement, 
vl  These  questions  —  material  questions  we  might 
call  them  —  seem  to  have  had  no  place  in  Pater's 
thoughts.  Nor  do  we  find  any  definite  answer  to 
them  as  we  run  over  his  whole  writing  or  as  we 
see  it  condensed  in  his  treatment  of  Plato. 

In  the  treatment  of  Plato,  however,  we  do  find 
one  idea  so  prominent  that  considering  what  has 
already  been  said  of  the  book,  we  shall  hardly  go 
wrong  in  taking  it  as  a  ruling  conception  in  Pater's 
own  thinking,  more  especially  as  it  is  not  contrary 
to  what  we  otherwise  know  of  him,  but  quite  con- 
sistent and  indeed  readily  to  be  developed  from  it. 
The  book  on  Plato  was  possibly  thought  of  by  Pater 
more  as  a  collection  of  essays  than  the  systematic 
development  of  a  set  of  ideas,  but  the  chapters  are 
quite  closely  related  for  all  that,  and  all  have  expres- 
sion of  one  side  or  another,  one  view  or  another  of 
one  of  those  great  antinomies  which  is  as  perplex- 
ing now  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Plato, —  the  ques-S 
tion  of  centripetalism  and  centrifugalism,  as  Pater  I 
calls  it.  The  opposition  is  not  only  mentioned  in 
many  places,  but  it  is  fundamental.    Plato  saw  the 


INTRODUCTION  Ixvii 

centrifugal  tendencies  of  his  day, —  the  general  tem- 
per of  the  lonians,  "  the  sea-people  "  who  have  the 
roaming  thoughts  of  sailors  ever  ready  to  float  away 
anywhither  amid  their  walls  of  wood,  the  jingo 
imperialism  of  Athens,  in  Plato's  youth  fairly  showy 
and  successful,  the  fashionable  diffuseness  of  the 
Sophists, —  Plato  saw  all  that  but  he  was  the  friend 
of  Socrates  who  told  him  to  know  himself.  So 
against  the  mobile  and  fluid  temper  of  the  littoral 
Ionian  people  he  set  up  the  model  of  the  inland 
Laconian  secure  without  walls  amid  the  hollows  of 
his  hills.  Alcibiades  and  the  rest  were  all  for  some 
great  naval  league  or  another :  Plato  conceived  his 
Republic  on  very  different  bases.  The  Sophists 
saw  the  world  of  man  and  said  it  was  the  measure 
of  all  things ;  Plato  by  the  spirit  perceived  absolute 
truth. 

/  This  centripetalism,  this  resolute  withstanding 
the  currents  of  the  outer  world,  this  was  at  the 
bottom  of  Platonism :  it  is  also  at  the  bottom  of 
.  Pater's  idea,  as  of  many  more  of  his  day  and  gen-^ 
leration.  Like  Socrates  Pater  AA/nnld  t^arh  young 
men  to  be  interested  in  themselves.  Florian  Deleal, 
the  first  imagiiTary  model  tor  Those  imaginary  por- 
traits which  all  have  that  family  likeness  we  noticed, 
how  much  he  must  have  sought  to  know  himself 
before  he  could  have  noted  so  carefully  all  those 
things  in  the  story  of  his  spirit  that  we  read  of  in 
"  The  Child  in  the  House."    It  was  doubtless  noth- 


Ixviii  INTRODUCTION 

ing  very  new,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  a  century 
which  opens  with  Byron,  should  bring  forth  Pater 
at  its  close.  Not  very  new,  not  very  distinctive  in 
itself  even,  and  possibly  needing  a  word  of  defence. 
It  does  not  seem  entirely  in  keeping  with  the  idea 
that  you  should  love  your  neighbor. 

Modern  thought,  it  is  true,  deals  readily  with  that 
principle,  pointing  out  that  altruism  per  se  is  con- 
trary to  the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
or  explaining  plausibly  that  if  you  are  to  love  your 
neighbor  as  yourself  you  must  love  yourself  first 
or  your  love  will  be  well-meaning  indeed  but  not 
very  effective. 

It  is  not  egoism  and  altruism,  however,  that 
Pater  has  in  mind  under  his  names  centripetalism 
and  centrifugalism.  It  is  another  one  of  those  in- 
variable paradoxes :  it  is  not  so  much  the  question 
of  living  for  oneself  or  for  others ;  it  is  rather  the 
question  of  living  with  respect  to  othersTaccording 
to  others,  or  rxcording  to  oneself.  And  here  there  is 
rather  more  to  say.  We  do  not  exactly  like  the 
words  self-assured,  self-absorbed,  self-centered  and 
we  think  we  do  not  like  the  qualities  that  they  rep- 
resent. "  Centripetalism  "  does  not  of  necessity 
engender  these  qualities  but  it  does  not  discourage 
them  much.  Take  the  other  thing,  however;  con- 
sider the  case,  the  life  not  for  self  but  for  the  great 
world  outside :  should  we  prefer  to  be  absorbed  not 
in   our  own   thoughts   and  feelings   but  in  what 


INTRODUCTION  Ixix 

Other  people  do  or  think  (or  more  usually  in  what 
they  once  thought  or  thought  they  thought) ;  to  try 
to  model  our  lives  by  what  others  think  they  ought 
to  be,  or  more  often  according  to  what  we  wish 
others  might  think  we  were;  to  have  the  eye  out 
always  on  those  better  off  than  ourselves  or  worse 
off  or  cleverer  or  more  foolish,  to  measure  our- 
selves always  with  them,  to  rate  success  according 
as  we  can  impose  our  will  on  them,  consciously  or 
unconsciously;  to  be  humiliated  when  we  cannot 
force  their  admiration  or  subserviency,  to  be  elated 
when  they  take  us  at  our  own  valuation  or  what  we 
have  determined  we  ought  to  be  valued  at ;  to  like 
only  what  it  is  the  fashion  to  like  or  the  fad  or  the 
vogue  or  the  thing,  to  know  what  ''  they  "  say  and 
do,  never  to  eat  nor  drink  except  as  other  people 
would  approve  were  they  with  us?  All  that  sort 
of  thing  (that  was  the  world  the  Sophists  taught 
how  to  conquer)  is  surely  no  better  than  thinking 
of  ourselves.  Success  in  that  direction  has  its  charm 
and  so  has  the  struggle  for  success,  or  even  defeat, 
—  brilliancy,  admiration,  praise,  esteem,  even  love, 
money,  power,  fame,  all  those  things  too  depend  on 
somebody  else,  on  other  people.  You  cannot  be 
Napoleon  or  La  Rochefoucauld  or  Beau  Brummell, 
or  we  might  add  Lady  Bountiful  or  the  Good 
Samaritan,  all  by  yourself.  You  must  have  a  world 
and  live  in  it  and  think  of  it. 

Still  one  mav  ask  *'  How  about  peace  and  charac- 


Ixx  INTRODUCTION 

ter  and  the  quiet  places  of  one's  soul,  and  all  the 
charms  of  simplicity?  "  and  in  practice  it  is  really 
a  question  of  balance, —  in  theory  something  deeper 
but  in  practice  a  question  of  How  much  to  each? 
Pater  would  have  us  keep  our  attention  mostly  on 
ourselves.  Culture,  as  with  Matthew  Arnold,  is  the 
main  thing,  though  of  a  different  kind  and  with  a 
different  aim. 

And  the  principle  of  culture,  if  we  may  follow  the 
discussion  of  Plato,  is  h^riQony.  We  note  the  idea 
everywhere.  Even  Heraclitus,  so  Ionian  in  his  doc- 
trine of  motion,  had  in  mind  "  some  antiphonal 
rhythm  or  logic  which  proceeding  uniformly  from 
movement  to  movement,  as  in  some  intricate  musi- 
cal theme,  might  link  together  in  one  those  con- 
tending infinitely  diverse  impulses."  Parmenides 
tended  toward  the  true  purpose  of  all  philosophy, 
the  effort  "  to  enforce  a  reasonable  unity  and  order, 
to  impress  some  larger  likeness  of  reason  as  one 
knows  it  ourself,  upon  the  chaotic  infinitude  ot  the 
impressions  that  reach  us  from  every  side."  In  the 
form  of  number,  of  music,  it  was  the  foundation  of 
the  doctrine  of  Pythagoras.  And  in  the  parts  of  the 
book  devoted  more  precisely  to  Plato  it  is  ever 
present,  sometimes  in  the  concrete  form,  "  the  visi- 
ble presentment  of  it  in  the  faultless  person  of  the 
youthful  Charmides  "  or  more  theoretically  in  the 
music,  the  architecture  of  the  City  of  the  Perfect 
which  molds  the  characters  of  its  citizens.     Har- 


INTRODUCTION  Ixxi 

mony,  music  as  the  full  round  of  the  teachings  of 
the  Muses,  music  as  the  typical  art  to  which  other 
arts  constantly  tend,  indeed,  perfection.  Only  an- 
other word  for  perfection  perhaps  (simple  matter 
enough)  but  to  be  attained  not  by  reaching  out  or 
by  strife,  but  by  temperance,  by  reserve,  by  disci- 
pline. 

^Discipline  rather  than  experience.  The  idea  is 
constantly  appearing.  Even  in  the  essay  on  Words- 
worth we  have  it  in  the  sense  of  that  seY^ere  training 
of  ,th€-^taste_ji£ce-^sary- to  artistic  appreciation.  In 
the  art  casuistries  of  Flavian  and  in  the  later  essay 
on  Style  it  is  the  exclusion  of  surplusage,  of  need- 
less exuberance.  In  the  essay  on  the  Greek  ath- 
letes it  becomes  the  physical  training  needful  to 
develop  perfection  of  form.  In  Sebastian  van 
Storck  it  is  the  imperative  refusal,  demanded  by  the 
duties  of  the  intellect,  of  much  in  everyday  life.  In 
Emerald  Uthwart  it  is  that  living  under  constituted 
rule,  so  needful  for  the  development  of  character, 
and  so  also  in  Plato's  City  of  the  Perfect,  where  the 
half  is  often  more  than  the  whole.  Ascesis,  he  calls 
it,  meaning  thereby  not  asceticism,  but  discipline, 
reasonable  exercise,  self-restraint,  even  chastisement 
of  an  over-expansive  nature.  ,X 

And  that  is  the  last  word  that  Pater  left.  With 
all  the  curiosity,  the  interest,  the  appreciation  of  life, 
beauty,  'the  world,  with  all  that,  yet  the  final  note, 
struck  over  and  over  again,  is  harmony,  self-con- 
trol, ascesis.     Philosophy,  of  which  the  service  to 


Ixxii  INTRODUCTION 

the  human  spirit  was  at  first  said  to  be  to  startle  it 
to  eager  observation,  is  finally  at  its  best  when  it 
gives  an  insight  into  that  so  welcome  fitness  in  the 
order  of  the  world  "  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
fine  arts  to  convey  into  material  things,  of  the  art 
of  discipline  to  enforce  upon  the  lives  of  men." 

Bring  your  impressions,  your  sensations,  your 
desires  into  a  harmonious  order  —  and  wait. 
Marius  and  Sebastian  van  Storck,  Pater's  typical 
thinkers,  representative  of  the  paradox  that  existed 
in  Pater's  own  thought,  Marius  the  all-inclusive, 
Sebastian  the  all-exclusive,  each  realized  the  final 
truth  not  only  unwittingly,  but  in  a  way  neither 
would  have  previously  conceived. 


CHRONOLOGY. 


1839. — -August  4th.  Born  at  Shadwell,  a  part  of 
London. 

1853. —  Enters   King's   School,   Canterbury. 

1859. —  Enters  Queen's  Coll.,  Oxford. 

1862. —  Takes  the  degree  of  B.  A.  and  begins  to 
read  with  private  pupils. 

1864. —  Elected  Fellow  of  Brasenose  College,  Ox- 
ford. 

1866. — "Coleridge"  in  the  Westminster  Review  for 
January :  This  is  reprinted  as  the  first 
part  of  the  essay  on  Coleridge  in  "  Ap- 
preciations." 

1873. — "  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renais- 
sance :"  Five  out  of  the  ten  essays  had 
already  been  published  in  periodicals. 

1885. —  "  Marius  the  Epicurean." 

1886. —  Moves,  with  his  sister,  to  London,  retain- 
ing however,  his  college  rooms. 

1887. —  "Imaginary  Portraits":  four  sketches 
which  had  appeared  in  Macmillan's 
Magazine  in  the  preceding  year. 

1889. — "Appreciations  "  :  eleven  essays,  all  of  which 
had  been  published  in  magazines. 

1893. —  "  Plato  and  Platonism." 

1893. —  Move-s  back  to  Oxford. 
Ixxiii 


Ixxiv  CHRONOLOGY 

1894. —  July  30.    Dies  at  his  own  house. 

1895. — "  Greek  Studies." 

1895. — '*  Miscellaneous  Studies." 

1896. — *'  Gaston  de  Latour." 

These  three  books  were  published  under  the  care 
of  Pater's  friend  Charles  L.  Shadwell,  who  prefixed 
to  the  second  of  them  ''  a  brief  chronological  list  of 
his  published  writings." 

Between  1886  and  1890  Pater  published  in  The 
Guardian  nine  reviews.  These  he  never  collected, 
but  they  were  privately  printed  in  1896  and  have 
since  been  twice  published,  in  1898  and  1901. 

In  The  Athenaeum  June  12,  1897,  eleven  other 
articles  are  noted :  these  have  not  been  collected. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Not  very  much  has  been  written  of  Pater.  To- 
ward the  end  of  his  hfe  his  books  were  very  gen- 
erally noticed  at  length  and  a  periodical  index  will 
disclose  a  considerable  number  of  reviews.  A  num- 
ber of  articles  will  be  found  shortly  after  his  death 
and  about  the  time  of  publishing  his  three  post- 
humous volumes.  The  following  are  the  best  things 
in  their  various  kinds.  The  curious  student  will 
also  read  Mallock's  "  New  Republic  "  for  a  contem- 
porary view  of  Pater's  earlier  days. 

Dyer,  Louis.  "  Walter  Pater."  A  letter  to  the 
*'  Nation,"  Aug.  23,  1894,  written  from  Oxford 
shortly  after  Pater's  death.  It  gives  a  statement  of 
his  work  which  though  short  has  some  very  just 
remarks. 

Gosse,  Edmund.  "  Walter  Pater :  A  Portrait.'* 
Contemporary  Review,  December,  1894.  This  per- 
sonal sketch  must  be  read  by  everybody  who  would 
add  an  idea  of  personal  character  to  a  knowledge  of 
Pater's  work. 

Jacobus,  Russell  T.     "The  Blessedness  of  Ego- 
ism."    Fortnightly  Review,  March,  1896.     The  ar- 
ticle mentioned  on  p.  xiv. 
Ixxv 


Ixxvi  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Johnson,  Lionel.  "  The  Work  of  Mr.  Pater." 
Fortnightly  Review,  September,  1894.  An  "  appre- 
ciation "  and  study  of  style. 

Lee,  Vernon.  "  Renaissance  Fancies  and  Stud- 
ies.'' A  few  pages  at  the  end  of  the  book  are  worth 
reading  as  by  one  of  the  sanest  and  most  brilliant  of 
those  whom  Pater  influenced. 

Saintsbury,  George.  "  Craik's  English  Prose," 
Vol.  V.  A  short  note  chiefly  on  Pater's  style  :  much 
the  same  thing  may  be  found  in  the  same  author's 
"  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,"  pp.  398—401. 

Symonds,  Arthur.  ''  Studies  in  Two  Literatures." 
pp.  169--185.     An  '*  appreciation." 

"  Latter  Day  Pagans."    The 

Quarterly  Review,  July,  1895.  The  article  men- 
tioned on  p.  Ixiii. 

A  Bibliography  of  Pater's  writings  as  collected 
by  himself  and  his  literary  executor  Mr.  C.  L.  Shad- 
well,  will  be  found  in  "  Miscellaneous  Studies." 


SELECTIONS 

FROM 

WALTER    PATER 
IPretace 

To  "  The  Renaissance." 

I  Many  attempts  have  been  made  by  writers  on 
art  and  poetry  to  define  beauty  in  the  abstract,  to 
express  it  in  the  most  general  terms,  to  find  a  uni- 
versal formula  for  it.  The  value  of  these  attempts 
5  has  most  often  been  in  the  suggestive  and  pene- 
trating things  said  by  the  way.  Such  discussions 
help  us  very  little  to  enjoy  what  has  been  well 
done  in  art  or  poetry,  to  discriminate  between  what 
is  more  and  what  is  less  excellent  in  them,  or  to 

lo  use  words  like  beauty,  excellence,  art,  poetry,  with 
a  more  precise  meaning  than  they  would  otherwise 
have.  Beauty,  like  all  other  qualities  presented  to 
human  experience,  is  relative ;  and  the  definition  of 
it  becomes  unmeaning  and  useless  in  proportion  to 

15  its  abstractness.  To  define  beauty,  not  in  the  most 
abstract,  but  in  the  most  concrete  terms  possible, 
to  find,  not  a  universal  formula  for  it,  but  the  for- 
mula which  expresses  most  adequately  this  or  that 
special  manifestation  of  it,  is  the  aim  of  the  true 

20  student  of  aesthetics. 

"  To  see  the  object  as  in  itself  it  really  is,"  has 
I 


w 


2  '  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

been  justly  said  to  be  the  aim  of  all  true  criticism 
whatever;  and  in  aesthetic  criticism  the  first  step 
towards   seeing  one's   object  as   it   really  is,  is  to 
know  one's  own  impression  as  it  really  is,  to  dis- 
criminate it.  to  realise  it  distinctly.     The  objects  5 
with     which     aesthetic     criticism      deals  —  music, 
poetry,  artistic  and  accomplished  forms  of  human 
life — are   indeed   receptacles   of  so   many   powers 
or  forces :  they  possess,  like  the  products  of  nature, 
so  many  virtues  or  qualities.    What  is  this  song  or  10 
picture,  this  engaging  personality  presented  in  life 
or  in  a  book,  to  mef     What  effect  does  it  really 
produce  on  me?    Does  it  give  me  pleasure?  and  if 
so,  what  sort  or  degree  of  pleasure?     How  is  my 
nature  modified  by  its  presence,  and  under  its  in- 15 
fluence?     The  answers  to  these  questions  are  the 
original  facts  with  which  the  aesthetic  critic  has  to 
doj  and,  as  in  the  study  of  light,  of  morals,  of  num- 
ber, one  must  realise  such  primary  data  for  oneself, 
or  not  at  all.     And  he  who  experiences  these  im-2c 
pressions  strongly,  and  drives  directly  at  the  analy- 
sis   and    discrimination  of    them,  has  no  need    to 
trouble  himself   with    the    abstract    question    what 
beauty  is  in  itself,  or  what  its  exact  relation  to  truth 
or    experience  —  metaphysical    questions,    as    un-  25 
profitable  as  metaphysical  questions  elsewhere.   He 
may  pass  them  all  by  as  being,  answerable  or  not, 
of  no  interest  to  him.         , 
^      The  aesthetic  critic,  th^n*^  regards  all  the  objects 
with  which  he  has  to  do,  all  works  of  art,  and  these 
fairer  forms  of  nature  and  human  life,  as  powers  or 
forces  producing  pleasurable  sensations,  each  of  a 
more  or  less  peculiar  or  unique  kind.     This  influ- 


PREFACE  TO  "  THE  RENAISSANCE  "  3 

ence  he  feels,  and  wishes  to  explain,  analysing  it, 
and  reducing  it  to  its  elements.  To  him,  the  pic- 
ture, the  landscape,  the  engaging  personality  in  life 
or  in  a  book,  La  Gioconda,  the  hills  of  Carrara,  Pico 
5  of  Mirandola,  are  valuable  for  their  virtues,  as  we 
say,  in  speaking  of  a  herb,  a  wine,  a  gem ;  for  the 
property  each  has  of  affecting  on^  with  a  special,  a 
unique,  impression  of  pleasure.  <;C)ur  education  be-  / 
comes  complete  in  proportion  as  our  susceptibility  | 

10  to  these  impressions  increases  in  depth  and  variety.  ) 
<^^d  the  function  of  the  aesthetic  critic  is  to  distin- 
guish, analyse,  and  separate  from  its  adjuncts,  the 
virtue  by  which  a  picture,  a  landscape,  a  fair  per- 
sonality in  life  or  in  a  book,  produces  this  special 

15  impression  of  beauty  or  pleasure,  to  indicate  what 
the  source  of  that  impression  is,  and  under  what 
conditions  It  is  experienced.  His  end  Is  reached 
when  he  has  disengaged  that  virtue,  and  noted  it, 
as  a  chemist  notes  some  natural  element,  for  hlm- 

20  self  and  others  jl  and  the  rule  for  those  who  would 
reach  this  eria  Is  stated  with  great  exactness  in 
the  words  of  a  recent  critic  of  Sainte-Beuve : — De 
se  bonier  a  cov.naUre  de  pres  les  belles  elwses,  et  a  s'en 

rwrjr  en  exqiiis  amateurs,  en  humanistes  accomplis. 
Wa^  is  important,  tlsS^,N^not  that  tkf  critic 
should  possess  a  correct  abstract  definition  of 
beauty  for  the  Intellect,  but  a  certain  kind  of  tem- 
perament, the  power  of  being  deeply  moved  by  the 
presence  of  beautiful  objects.  He  will  remember  i 
30  always  that  beauty  exists  In  many  forms.  To  him 
all  periods,  tvpes,  schools  of  taste,  are  In  themselves  i 
equal.  In  all  ages  there  have  been  some  excellent 
workmen,  and   some   excellent   work    done.    The 


y 


4  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

question  he  asks  is  always : —  In  whom  did  the  stir, 
the  genius,  the  sentiment  of  the  period  find  itself? 
where  was  the  receptacle  of  its  refinement,  its  eleva- 
tion, its  taste?  "  The  ages  are  all  equal,"  says  Wil- 
liam Blake,  "  but  genius  is  always  above  its  age."  5 

Often  it  will  require  great  nicety  tO'  disengage 
this  virtue  from  the  commoner  elements  wath  which 
it-m^^be  found  in  combination.  Few  artists,  not 
oS^nh  or  Byron  even,  work  quite  cleanly,  casting 
off  all  debris,  and  leaving  us  only  what  the  heat  of  10 
their  imagination  has  wholly  fused  and  trans- 
formed. Take,  for  instance,  the  writings  of  Words- 
worth. The  heat  of  his  genius,  entering  into  the 
substance  of  his  work,  has  crystallised  a  part,  but 
only  a  part,  of  it;  and  in  that  great  mass  of  verse  15 
there  is  much  which  might  well  be  forgotten.  But 
scattered  up  and  down  it,  sometimes  fusing  and 
transforming  entire  corQpositions,  like  the  stanzas 
on  Resolution  and  Independence,  and  the  Ode  on  the 
Recollections  of  Childhood,  sometimes,  as  if  at  ran- 20 
dom,  depositing  a  fine  crystal  here  or  there,  in  a 
matter  it  does  not  wholly  search  through  and  trans- 
form, we  trace  the  action  of  his  unique,  incommuni- 
cable faculty,  that  strange,  mystical  sense  of  a  life 
in  natural  things,  and  of  man's  life  as  a  part  of  na-25 
ture,  drawing  strength  and  colour  and  character 
from  local  influences,  from  the  hills  and  streams, 
and  from  natural  sights  and  sounds.  Well !  that  is 
the  virtue,  the  active  principle  in  Wordsworth's 
poetry;  and  then  the  function  of  the  critic  of 30 
Wordsworth  is  to  follow  up  that  active  principle, 
to  disengage  it,  to  mark  the  degree  in  which  it  pene- 
trates his  verse^ 


PREFACE  TO  "  THE  RENAISSANCE  "  5 

The  subjects  of  the  following  studies  are  taken 
from  the  history  of  the  Renaissance,  and  touch  what 
I  think  the  chief  points  in  that  complex,  many- 
sided  movement.  I  have  explained  in  the  first  of 
5  them  what  I  understand  by  the  word,  giving  it  a 
much  wider  scope  than  was  intended  by  those  who 
originally  used  it  to  denote  only  that  revival  of 
classical  antiquity  in  the  fifteenth  century  which 
was  but  one  of  many  results  of  a  general  excitement 

10  and  enlightening  of  the  human  mind,  of  which  the 
great  aim  and  achievements  of  what,  as  Christian 
art,  is  often  falsely  opposed  to  the  Renaissance, 
were  another  result.  This  outbreak  of  the  human 
spirit  may  be  traced  far  into  the  Middle  Age  itself, 

15  with  its  qualities  already  clearly  pronounced,  the 
care  for  physical  beauty,  the  worship  of  the  body, 
the  breaking  down  of  those  limits  which  the  relig- 
ious system  of  the  Middle  Age  imposed  on  the  heart 
and  the  imagination.     I  have  taken  as  an  example 

20  of  this  movement,  this  earlier  Renaissance  within 
the  Middle  Age  itself,  and  as  an  expression  of  its 
qualities,  two  little  compositions  in  early  French; 
not  because  they  constitute  the  best  possible  ex- 
pression of  them,  but  because  they  help  the  unity 

25  of  my  series,  inasmuch  as  the  Renaissance  ends 
also  in  France,  in  French  poetry,  in  a  phase  cf 
which  the  writings  of  Joachim  du  Bellay  are  in 
many  ways  the  most  perfect  illustration ;  the  Re- 
naissance thus   putting  forth   in   France   an   after- 

30  math,  a  wonderful  later  growth,  the  products  of 
which  have  to  the  full  that  subtle  and  delicate  sweet- 
ness which  belongs  to  a  refined  and  comely  decad- 
ence ;  just  as  its  earliest  phases  have  the  freshness 


6  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

which  belongs  to  all  periods  of  growth  in  art,  the 
charm  of  asepsis,  of  the  austere  and  serious  gird- 
ing of  the  loins  in  youth. 

But  it  is  in  Italy,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  that 
the  interest  of  the  Renaissance  mainly  lies, —  in  that  5 
solemn  fifteenth  century  which  can  hardly  be 
studied  too  much,  not  merely  for  its  positive  re- 
sults in  the  things  of  the  intellect  and  the  imagina- 
tion, its  concrete  works  of  art,  its  special  and  prom- 
inent personalities,  with  their  profound  aesthetic  10 
charm,  but  for  its  general  spirit  and  character,  for 
the  ethical  qualities  of  which  it  is  a  consummate 
type. 

The  various  forms  of  intellectual  activity  which 
together  make  up  the  culture  of  an  age,  move  fori-, 
the  most  part  from  different  starting-points,  and  by 
unconnected  roads.    As  products  of  the  same  gen- 
eration they  partake,  indeed,  of  a  common  charac- 
ter, and   unconsciously   illustrate   each   other;   but 
of  the  producers  themselves,  each  group  is  solitary,  21 1 
gaining  what  advantage  or  disadvantage  there  may 
be  in  intellectual  isolation.     Art  and  poetry,  philos- 
ophy and  the  religious  life,  and  that  other  life  of 
refined  pleasure  and  action  in  the  open  places  of 
the  world,  are  each  of  them  confined  to  its  own  circle  25 
of  ideas,  and  those  who  prosecute  either  of  them 
are  generally  little  curious  of  the  thoughts  of  others. 
There  come,  however,  from  time  to  time,  eras  of 
more  favourable  conditions,  in  which  the  thoughts 
of  men  draw  nearer  together  than  is  their  wont,  and  30 
the  many  interests  of  the  intellectual  world  com- 
bine in  one  complete  type  of  general  culture.    The 
fifteenth  century  in  Italy  is  one  of  these  happier 


PREFACE  TO  "  THE  RENAISSANCE  "  7 

eras;   and   what  is   sometimes  said  of  the  age  of 
Pericles  is  true  of  that  of  Lorenzo: — it  is  an  age 
productive  in  personalities,  many-sided,  centralised, 
complete.    Here,  artists  and  philosophers  and  those 
5  whom  the  action  of  the  world  has  elevated  and  made 
keen,  do  not  live  in  isolation,  but  breathe  a  common 
air,   and  catch   light  and  heat  from   each  other's 
thoughts.     There  is  a  spirit  of  general  elevation 
and  enlightenment  in  which  all  alike  communicate. 
10  It  is  the  unity  of  this  spirit  which  gives  unity  to 
all  the  various  products  of  the  Renaissance;  and  it 
is  to  this  intimate  alliance  with  mind,  this  partici- 
pation in  the  best  thoughts  which  that  age  pro- 
duced, that  the  art  of  Italy  in  the  fifteenth  century 
15  owes  much  of  its  grave  dignity  and  influence. 
I  have  added  an  essay  on  Winckelmann,  as  not 
incongruous  wnth  the  studies  which  precede  it,  be- 
cause Winckelmann,  coming  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, really  belongs  in  spirit  to  an  earlier  age.    By 
20  his  enthusiasm  for  the  things  of  the  intellect  and 
the  imagination  for  their  own  sake,  by  his  Hellen- 
ism, his  life-long  struggle  to  attain  to  the  Greek 
spirit,  he  is  in  sympathy  with  the  humanists  of  an 
earlier  century.     He  is  the  last  fruit  of  the  Renais- 
25  sance,  and  explains  in  a  striking  way  its   motive 
and  tendencies. 

(From  The  Renaissance,  1873.) 


Sant)ro  Botticelli 

In  Leonardo's  treatise  on  painting  only  one  con- 
temporary is  mentioned  by  name  —  Sandro  Botti- 
celli. This  pre-eminence  may  be  due  to  chance 
only,  but  to  some  will  rather  appear  a  result  of 
deliberate  judgment ;  for  people  have  begun  to  find  5 
out  the  charm  of  Botticelli's  work,  and  his  name, 
little  known  in  the  last  century,  is  quietly  becoming 
important.  In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century 
he  had  already  anticipated  much  of  that  meditative 
subtlety,  which  is  sometimes  supposed  peculiar  to  10 
the  great  imaginative  workmen  of  its  close.  Leav- 
ing the  simple  religion  which  had  occupied  the  fol- 
lowers of  Giotto  for  a  century,  and  the  simple  nat- 
uralism which  had  grown  out  of  it,  a  thing  of  birds 
and  flowers  only,  he  sought  inspiration  in  what  to  15 
him  were  works  of  the  modern  world,  the  writings 
of  Dante  and  Boccaccio,  and  in  new  readings  of  his 
own  of  classical  stories :  or,  if  he  painted  religious 
incidents,  painted  them  with  an  under-current  of 
original  sentiment,  which  touches  you  as  the  real  20 
matter  of  the  picture  through  the  veil  of  its  osten- 
sible subject.  What  is  the  peculiar  sensation,  what 
is  the  peculiar  quality  of  pleasure,  which  his  work 
has  the  property  of  exciting  in  us,  and  which  we 
cannot  get  elsewhere?  For  this,  especially  when 25 
he  has  to  speak  of  a  comparatively  unknown  artist, 
is  always  the  chief  question  which  a  critic  has  to 
answer. 

8 


SANDRO  BOTTICELLI  9 

In  an  age  when  the  lives  of  artists  were  full  of 
adventure,  his  life  is  almost  colourless.  Criticism 
indeed  has  cleared  away  much  of  the  gossip  which 
Vasari    accumulated,    has   touched   the    legend   of 

5  Lippo  and  Lucrezia,  and  rehabilitated  the  charac- 
ter of  Andrea  del  Castagno ;  but  in  Botticelli's  case 
there  is  no  legend  to  dissipate.  He  did  not  even 
go  b}^  his  true  name :  Sandro  is  a  nickname,  and  his 
true    name   is    Filipepi,   Botticelli   being    only  the 

10  name  of  the  goldsmith  who  first  taught  him  art. 
Only  two  things  happened  to  him,  two  things 
which  he  shared  with  other  artists  : —  he  was  invited 
to  Rome  to  paint  in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  he  fell 
in  later  life  under  the  influence  of  Savonarola,  pass- 

15  ing  apparently  almost  out  of  men's  sight  in  a  sort 
of  religious  melancholy,  which  lasted  till  his  death 
in  1515,  according  to  the  received  date.  Vasari 
says  that  he  plunged  into  the  study  of  Dante,  and 
even  wrote  a  comment  on  the  Divine  Comedy.    But  it 

20  seems  strange  that  he  should  have  lived  on  inac- 
tive so  long ;  and  one  almost  wishes  that  some  docu- 
ment might  come  to  light,  which,  fixing  the  date 
of  his  death  earlier,  might  relieve  one,  in  thinking 
of  him,  of  his  dejected  old  age. 

25  He  is  before  all  things  a  poetical  painter,  blend- 
ing the  charm  of  story  and  sentiment,  the  medium 
of  the  art  of  poetry,  with  the  charm  of  line  and 
colour,  the  medium  of  abstract  painting.  So  he 
becomes  the  illustrator  of  Dante.    In  a  few  rare  ex- 

30  amples  of  the  edition  of  1481,  the  blank  spaces,  left 
at  the  beginning  of  every  canto  for  the  hand  of  the 
illuminator,  have  been  filled,  as  far  as  the  nineteenth 
canto  of  the  Inferno,  with  impressions  of  engraved 


10  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

plates,  seemingly  by  way  of  experiment,  for  in  the 
copy  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  one  of  the  three  im- 
pressions it  contains  has  been  printed  upside  down, 
and  much  awry,  in  the  midst  of  the  luxurious 
printed  page.  Giotto,  and  the  followers  of  Giotto,  5 
with  their  almost  childish  religious  aim,  had  not 
learned  to  put  that  weight  of  meaning  into  out- 
ward things,  light,  colour,  everyday  gesture,  which 
the  poetry  of  the  Divine  Comedy  involves,  and  be- 
fore the  fifteenth  century  Dante  could  hardly  have  10 
found  an  illustrator.  Botticelh's  illustrations  are 
crowded  with  incident,  blending,  with  a  naive  care- 
lessness of  pictorial  propriety,  three  phases  of  the 
same  scene  into  one  plate.  The  grotesques,  so  often 
a  stumbling-block  to  painters  who  forget  that  the  15 
words  of  a  poet,  which  only  feebly  present  an  image 
to  the  mind,  must  be  lowered  in  key  when  trans- 
lated into  form,  make  one  regret  that  he  has  not 
rather  chosen  for  illustration  the  more  subdued 
imagery  of  the  Purgatorio.  Yet  in  the  scene  of  20 
those  who  "  go  down  quick  into  hell,"  there  is  an 
invention  about  the  fire  taking  hold  on  the  upturned 
soles  of  the  feet,  which  proves  that  the  design  is  no 
mere  translation  of  Dante's  words,  but  a  true 
painter's  vision;  while  the  scene  of  the  Centaurs 25 
wins  one  at  once,  for,  forgetful  of  the  actual  cir- 
cumstances of  their  appearance,  Botticelli  has  gone 
off  with  delight  on  the  thought  of  the  Centaurs 
themselves,  bright,  small  creatures  of  the  woodland, 
with  arch  baby  faces  and  mignon  forms,  drawing  3c 
tiny  bows.  *• 

Botticelli  lived  in  a  generation  of  naturalists,  and 
he  might  have  been  a  mere  naturalist  among  them. 


SANDRO  BOTTICELLI  li 

There  are  traces  enough  in  his  work  of  that  alert 
sense  of  outward  things,  which,  in  the  pictures  of 
that  period,  fills  the  lawns  with  delicate  living  crea- 
tures, and  the  hillsides  with  pools  of  water,  and  the 

5  pools  of  water  with  flowering  reeds.  But  this  was 
not  enough  for  him  ;  he  is  a  visionary  painter,  and 
in  his  visionariness  he  resembles  Dante.  Giotto, 
the  tried  companion  of  Dante,  Masaccio,  Ghirlan- 
dajo  even,  do  but  transcribe,  with  more  or  less  re- 

lo  fining,  the  outward  image ;  they  are  dramatic,  not 
visionary  painters ;  they  are  almost  impassive  spec- 
tators of  the  action  before  them.  But  the  genius 
of  which  Botticelli  is  the  type  usurps  the  data  be- 
fore it  as  the  exponent  of  ideas,  moods,  visions  of 

15  its  own;  in  this  interest  it  plays  fast  and  loose  with 
those  data,  rejecting  some  and  isolating  others,  and 
always  combining  them  anew.  To  him,  as  to 
Dante,  the  scene,  the  colour,  the  outward  image  or 
gesture,  comes  with  all  its  incisive  and  importu- 

2o  nate  reality ;  but  awakes  in  him,  moreover,  by  some 
subtle  law  of  his  own  structure,  a  mood  which  it 
awakes  in  no  one  else,  of  which  it  is  the  double 
or  repetition,  and  which  it  clothes,  that  all  may 
share  it,  with  sensuous  circumstance. 

25  But  he  is  far  enough  from  accepting  the  conven- 
tional orthodoxy  of  Dante  which,  referring  all  hu- 
man action  to  the  simple  formula  of  purgatory, 
heaven  and  hell,  leaves  an  insoluble  element  of  prose 
in  the  depths  of  Dante's  poetry.    One  picture  of  his, 

30  with  the  portrait  of  the  donor,  Matteo  Palmieri, 
below,  had  the  credit  or  discredit  of  attracting  some 
shadow  of  ecclesiastical  censure.  This  Matteo  Pal- 
mieri —  two  dim  figures  move  under  that  name  in 


12  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

contemporary  history  —  was  the  reputed  author  of 
a  poem,  still  unedited,  La  Citta  Diz'ina,  which  rep- 
resented the  human  race  as  an  incarnation  of  those 
angels  who,  in  the  revolt  of  Lucifer,  were  neither 
for  Jehovah  nor  for  His  enemies,  a  fantasy  of  that  5 
earlier  Alexandrian  philosophy  about  which  the 
Florentine  intellect  in  that  century  was  so  curious. 
Botticelli's  picture  may  have  been  only  one  of  those 
familiar  compositions  in  which  religious  reverie  has 
recorded  its  impressions  of  the  various  forms  of  10 
beatified  existence  —  Glorias,  as  they  were  called, 
like  that  in  which  Giotto  painted  the  portrait  of 
Dante;  but  somehow  it  was  suspected  of  embody- 
ing in  a  picture  the  wayward  dream  of  Palmieri, 
and  the  chapel  where  it  hung  was  closed.  Artists  15 
so  entire  as  Botticelli  are  usually  careless  about 
philosophical  theories,  even  when  the  philosopher 
is  a  Florentine  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  his 
work  a  poem  in  tersa  rima.  But  Botticelli,  who 
wrote  a  commentary  on  Dante,  and  became  the  dis-20 
ciple  of  Savonarola,  may  well  have  let  such  theo- 
ries come  and  go  across  him.  True  or  false,  the 
story  interprets  much  of  the  peculiar  sentiment  with 
which  he  infuses  his  profane  and  sacred  persons, 
comely,  and  in  a  certain  sense  like  angels,  but  with  25 
a  sense  of  displacement  or  loss  about  them  —  the 
wistfulness  of  exiles,  conscious  of  a  passion  and 
energy  greater  than  any  known  issue  of  them  ex- 
plains, which  runs  through  all  his  varied  work  with 
a  sentiment  of  ineffable  melancholy.  30 

So  just  what  Dante  scorns  as  unworthy  alike  of 
heaven  and  hell,  Botticelli  accepts,  that  middle 
world  in  which  men  take  no  side  in  great  conflicts, 


SANDRO  BOTTICELLI  13 

and  decide  no  great  causes,  and  make  great  re- 
fusals. He  thus  sets  for  himself  the  limits  within 
which  art,  undisturbed  by  any  moral  ambition,  does 
its  most  sincere  and  surest  work.  His  interest  is 
5  neither  in  the  untempered  goodness  of  Angelico's 
saints,  nor  the  untempered  evil  of  Orcagna's  In- 
ferno; but  with  men  and  women,  in  their  mixed 
and  uncertain  condition,  always  attractive,  clothed 
sometimes  by  passion  w4th  a  character  of  loveliness 

10  and  energy,  but  saddened  perpetually  by  the  shadow 
upon  them  of  the  great  things  from  which  they 
shrink.  His  morality  is  all  sympathy ;  and  it  is  this 
sympathy,  conveying  into  his  work  somewhat  more 
than  is  usual  of  the  true  complexion  of  humanity, 

15  which  makes  him,  visionary  as  he  is,  so  forcible 
a  realist. 

It  is  this  which  gives  to  his  Madonnas  their 
unique  expression  and  charm.  He  has  worked  out 
in  them  a  distinct  and  peculiar  type,  definite  enough 

20  in  his  own  mind,  for  he  has  painted  it  over  and  over 
again,  sometimes  one  might  think  almost  mechani- 
cally, as  a  pastime  during  that  dark  period  when  his 
thoughts  were  so  heavy  upon  him.  Hardly  any 
collection  of  note  is  without  one  of  these  circular 

25  pictures,  into  which  the  attendant  angels  depress 
their  heads  so  naively.  Perhaps  you  have  some- 
times wondered  why  those  peevish-looking  Ma- 
donnas, conformed  to  no  acknowledged  or  obvious 
type   of  beauty,  attract   you   more  and   more,  and 

30  often  come  back  to  you  when  the  Sistine  Madonna 
and  the  Virgins  of  Fra  Angelico  are  forgotten.  At 
first,  contrasting  them  with  those,  you  may  have 
thought  that  there  was  something  in  them  mean  or 


14  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

abject  even,  for  the  abstract  lines  of  the  face  have 
little  nobleness,  and  the  colour  is  wan.  For  with 
Botticelli  she  too,  though  she  holds  in  her  hands 
the  "  Desire  of  all  nations,"  is  one  of  those  who 
are  neither  for  Jehovah  nor  for  His  enemies ;  and  5 
her  choice  is  on  her  face.  The  white  light  on  it  is 
cast  up  hard  and  cheerless  from  below,  as  when 
snow  lies  upon  the  ground,  and  the  children  look 
up  with  surprise  at  the  strange  whiteness  of  the 
ceiling.  Her  trouble  is  in  the  very  caress  of  the  10 
mysterious  child,  whose  gaze  is  always  far  from 
her,  and  who  has  already  that  sweet  look  of  devo- 
tion which  men  have  never  been  able  altogether 
to  love,  and  which  still  makes  the  born  saint  an  ob- 
ject almost  of  suspicion  to  his  earthly  brethren.  15 
Once,  indeed,  he  guides  her  hand  to  transcribe  in  a 
book  the  words  of  her  exaltation,  the  Ave,  and  the 
Magnificat,  and  the  Gaiide  Maria,  and  the  young 
angels,  glad  to  rouse  her  for  a  moment  from  her 
dejection,  are  eager  to  hold  the  inkhorn  and  to  sup- 20 
port  the  book ;  but  the  pen  almost  drops  from  her 
hand,  and  the  high  cold  words  have  no  meaning  for 
her,  and  her  true  children  are  those  others,  among 
whom,  in  her  rude  home,  the  intolerable  honour 
came  to  her,  with  that  look  of  wistful  inquiry  on  25 
their  irregular  faces  which  you  see  in  startled  ani- 
mals —  gipsy  children,  such  as  those  who,  in  Apen- 
nine  villages,  still  hold  out  their  long  brown  arms 
to  beg  of  you,  but  on  Sundays  become  enfants  du 
cha^iir,  with  their  thick  black  hair  nicely  combed,  30 
and  fair  white  linen  on  their  sunburnt  throats. 

What  is  strangest  is  that  he  carries  this  sentiment 
into  classical  subjects,  its  most  complete  expression 


SANDRO  ZOTTICELLI  15 

being  a  picture  in  the  UfFizi,  of  Venus  rising  from 
the  sea,  in  which  the  grotesque  emblems  of  the 
Middle  Age,  and  a  landscape  full  of  its  peculiar  feel- 
ing, and  even  its  strange  draperies  powdered  all 
5  over  in  the  Gothic  manner  with  a  quaint  conceit 
of  daisies,  frame  a  figure  that  reminds  you  of  the 
faultless  nude  studies  of  Ingres.  At  first,  perhaps, 
you  are  attracted  only  by  a  quaintness  of  design, 
which  seems  to  recall  all  at  once  whatever  you  have 

10 read  of  Florence  in  the  fifteenth  century;  after- 
wards you  may  think  that  this  quaintness  must  be 
incongruous  with  the  subject,  and  that  the  colour 
is  cadaverous  or  at  least  cold.  And  yet,  the  more 
you  come  to  understand  what  imaginative  colour- 

J5  ing  really  is,  that  all  colour  is  no  mere  delightful 
quality  of  natural  things,  but  a  spirit  upon  them 
by  which  they  become  expressive  to  the  spirit,  the 
better  you  will  like  this  peculiar  quality  of  colour; 
and  you  will  find  that  quaint  design  of  Botticelli's 

20  a  more  direct  inlet  into  the  Greek  temper  than  the 
works  of  the  Greeks  themselves  even  of  the  finest 
period.  Of  the  Greeks  as  they  really  were,  of  their 
difference  from  ourselves,  of  the  aspects  of  their 
outward  life,  we  know  far  more  than  Botticelli,  or 

25  his  most  learned  contemporaries ;  but  for  us  long 
familiarity  has  taken  ofY  the  edge  of  the  lesson,  and 
we  are  hardly  conscious  of  what  we  owe  to  the  Hel- 
lenic spirit.  But  in  pictures  like  this  of  Botticelli's 
you  have  a  record  of  the  first  impression  made  by  it 

30  on  minds  turned  back  towards  it,  in  almost  pain- 
ful aspiration,  from  a  world  in  which  it  had  been 
ignored  so  long;  and  in  the  passion,  the  energy, 
the   industry  of  realisation,   with   which    Botticelli 


i6  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

carries  out  his  intention,  is  the  exact  measure  of 
the  legitimate  influence  over  the  human  mind  of 
the  imaginative  system  of  which  this  is  the  central 
myth.  The  light  is  indeed  cold  —  mere  sunless 
dawn;  but  a  later  painter  would  have  cloyed  you 5 
with  sunshine ;  and  you  can  see  the  better  for  that 
quietness  in  the  morning  air  each  long  promon- 
tory, as  it  slopes  down  to  the  water's  edge.  Men  go 
forth  to  their  labours  imtil  the  evening;  but  she  is 
awake  before  them,  and  you  might  think  that  theio 
sorrow  in  her  face  was  at  the  thought  of  the  whole 
long  day  of  love  yet  to  come.  An  emblematical 
figure  of  the  wind  blows  hard  across  the  grey  water, 
moving  forward  the  dainty-lipped  shell  on  which 
she  sails,  the  sea  "  showing  his  teeth  "  as  it  moves  15 
in  thin  lines  of  foam,  and  sucking  in,  one  by  one, 
the  falling  roses,  each  severe  in  outline,  plucked 
off  short  at  the  stalk,  but  embrowned  a  little,  as 
Botticelli's  flowers  always  are.  Botticelli  meant  all 
that  imagery  to  be  altogether  pleasurable;  and  it 20 
was  partly  an  incompleteness  of  resources,  insepar- 
able from  the  art  of  that  time,  that  subdued  and 
chilled  it;  but  his  predilection  for  minor  tones 
counts  also ;  and  what  is  unmistakable  is  the  sadness 
with  which  he  has  conceived  the  goddess  of  pleas- 25 
ure,  as  the  depositary  of  a  great  power  over  the  lives 
of  men. 

I  have  said  that  the  peculiar  character  of  Botti- 
celli is  the  result  of  a  blending  in  him  of  a  sympathy 
for  humanity  in  its  uncertain  condition,  its  attract- 30 
iveness,  its  investiture  at  rarer  moments  in  a  charac- 
ter of  loveliness  and  energy,  with  his  consciousness 
of  the  shadow  upon  it  of  the  great  things  from' 


SANDRO  BOTTICELLI  17 

which  it  shrinks,  and  that  this  conveys  into  his  work 
somewhat  more  than  painting  usually  attains  of  the 
true  complexion  of  humanity.  He  paints  the  story 
of  the  goddess  of  pleasure  in  other  episodes  besides 
5  that  of  her  birth  from  the  sea,  but  never  without 
some  shadow  of  death  in  the  grey  flesh  and  wan 
flowers.  He  paints  Madonnas,  but  .hey  shrink  from 
the  pressure  of  the  divine  child,  and  plead  in  un- 
mistakable undertones  for  a  warmer,  lower  human- 

10  ity.  The  same  figure  —  tradition  connects  it  with 
Simonetta,  the  mistress  of  Giuliano  de'  Medici  — ■ 
appears  again  as  Judith,  returning  home  across  the 
hill  country,  when  the  great  deed  is  over,  and  the 
moment  of  revulsion  come,  when  the  olive  branch 

15  in  her  hand  is  becoming  a  bL.rthen;  as  Jr.stice,  sit- 
ting on  a  throne,  but  with  a  fixed  look  of  self- 
hatred  which  makes  the  sword  in  her  hand  seem 
that  of  a  suicide ;  and  again  as  Veritas,  in  the  alle- 
gorical picture  of  Caluvinia,  where  one  may  note 

20  in  passing  the  suggestiveness  of  an  accident  which 
identifies  the  image  of  Truth  with  the  person  of 
Venus.  We  might  trace  the  same  sentiment 
through  his  engravings ;  but  his  share  in  them  is 
doubtful,  and  the  object  of  this  brief  study  has  been 

25  attained,  if  I  have  defined  aright  the  temper  in 
which  he  worked. 

But,  after  all,  it  may  be  asked,  is  a  painter  like 
Botticelli,  a  secondary  painter,  a  proper  subject 
for  general  criticism  ?     There  are  a  few  great  paint- 

30  ers,  like  Michelangelo  or  Leonardo,  whose  work 
has  become  a  force  in  general  culture,  partly  for 
this  very  reason  that  they  have  absorbed  into  them- 
selves all  such  workmen  as  Sandro  Botticelli ;  and, 
2 


l8  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

over  and  above  mere  technical  or  antiquarian  criti- 
cism, general  criticism  may  be  very  well  employed 
in  that  sort  of  interpretation  which  adjusts  the  posi- 
tion of  these  men  to  '  general  culture,  whereas 
smaller  men  can  be  the  proper  subjects  only  of  5 
technical  or  antiquarian  treatment.  But,  besides 
those  great  men,  there  is  a  certain  number  of  art- 
ists who  have  a  distinct  faculty  of  their  own  by 
which  they  convey  to  us  a  peculiar  quality  of  pleas- 
ure which  we  cannot  get  elsewhere ;  and  these,  too,  10 
have  their  place  in  general  ctilture,  and  must  be 
interpreted  to  it  by  those  who  have  felt  their  charm 
strongly,  and  are  often  the  objects  of  a  special  dili- 
gence and  a  consideration  wholly  affectionate,  just 
because  there  is  not  about  them  the  stress  of  a  great  15 
nam.e  and  authority.  Of  this  select  number  Botti- 
celli is  one ;  he  has  the  freshness,  the  uncertain  and 
diffident  promise  which  belongs  to  the  earlier  Re- 
naissance itself,  and  makes  it  perhaps  the  most  in- 
teresting period  in  the  history  of  the  mind  :  in  study-  2c 
ing  his  work  one  begins  to  understand  to  how 
great  a  place  in  human  culture  the  art  of  Italy  had 
been  called. 

(From     the    Fortnightly    Review,    August,     1870.       The 
Renaissance,  1873.) 


Conclusion 

Ai-)'et  7:00  'HpdxXetro^  art  Trnyra  ^lopsT  xai  obdkv  /livst 

To  regard  all  things  and  principles  of  things  as 
inconstant  modes  or  fashions  has  more  and  more 
become  the  tendency  of  modern  thought.  Let  us 
begin  with  that  which  is  without  —  our  physical 
5  life.  Fix  upon  it  in  one  of  its  more  exquisite  inter- 
vals, the  moment,  for  instance,  of  delicious  recoil 
from  the  flood  of  water  in  summer  heat.  \Miat  is 
the  whole  physical  life  in  that  moment  but  a  com- 
bination of  natural  elements  to  which  science  gives 

ro  their  names?  But  these  elements,  phosphorus  and 
lime  and  delicate  fibres,  are  present  not  in  the  hu- 
man body  alone :  we  detect  them  in  places  most  re- 
mote from  it.  Our  physical  life  is  a  perpetual  mo- 
tion of  them  —  the  passage  of  the  blood,  the  wast- 

15  ing  and  repairing  of  the  lenses  of  the  eye,  the  modi- 
fication of  the  tissues  of  the  brain  by  every  ray  of 
light  and  sound  —  processes  which  science  reduces 
to  simpler  and  more  elementary  forces.  Like  the 
elements  of  which  we  are  composed,  the  action  of 

20  these  forces  extends  beyond  us ;  it  rusts  iron  and 
ripens  corn.  Far  out  on  every  side  of  us  those  ele- 
ments are  broadcast,  driven  by  many  forces ;  and 
birth  and  gesture  and  death  and  the  springing  of 
violets  from  the  grave  are  but  a  few  out  of  ten  thou- 

25  sand-resultant  combinations.  That  clear,  perpetual 
outline  of  face  and  limb  is  but  an  image  of  ours, 
under  which  we  group  them  —  a  design  in  a  web, 

19 


20  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

the  actual  threads  of  which  pass  out  beyond  it. 
This  at  least  of  flame-like  our  life  has,  that  it  is  but 
the  concurrence,  renewed  from  moment  to  moment, 
of  forces  parting  sooner  or  later  on  their  ways. 

Or  if  we  begin  with  the  inward  world  of  thoughts 
and  feeling,  the  whirlpool  is  still  more  rapid,  the 
flame  more  eager  and  devouring.  There  it  is  no 
longer  the  gradual  darkening  of  the  eye  and  fad- 
ing of  colour  from  the  wall, —  the  movement  of  the 
shore-side,  where  the  water  flows  down  indeed,  lo 
though  in  apparent  rest, —  but  the  race  of  the  mid- 
stream, a  drift  of  momentary  acts  of  sight  and  pas- 
sion and  thought.  At  first  sight  experience  seems 
to  bury  us  under  a  flood  of  external  objects,  press- 
ing upon  us  with  a  sharp  and  importunate  reality,  15 
calling  us  out  of  ourselves  in  a  thousand  forms  of 
action.  But  when  reflexion  begins  to  act  upon 
those  objects  they  are  dissipated  under  its  influ- 
ence ;  the  cohesive  force  seems  suspended  like  a 
trick  of  magic ;  each  object  is  loosed  into  a  group  of  20 
impressions  —  colour,  odour,  texture  —  in  the  mind 
of  the  observer.  And  if  we  continue  to  dwell  in 
thought  on  this  world,  not  of  objects  in  the  solidity 
with  which  language  invests  them,  but  of  impres- 
sions unstable,  flickering,  inconsistent,  which  burn 
and  are  extinguished  with  our  consciousness  ot 
them,  it  contracts  still  further ;  the  whole  scope  of 
observation  is  dwarfed  to  the  narrow  chamber  of 
the  individual  mind.  Experience,  already  reduced 
to  a  swarm  of  impressions,  is  ringed  round  for  each  30 
one  of  us  by  that  thick  wall  of  personality  through 
which  no  real  voice  has  ever  pierced  on  its  way  to 
us,  or  from  us  to  that  which  we  can  only  conjecture 


CONCLUSION  21 

to  be  without.  Every  one  of  those  Impressions  is 
the  impression  of  the  individual  in  his  isolation, 
each  mind  keeping  as  a  solitary  prisoner  its  own 
dream  of  a  world. 

5  Analysis  goes  a  step  farther  still,  and  assures 
us  that  those  impressions  of  the  individual  mind 
to  which,  for  each  one  of  us,  experience  dwin- 
dles down,  are  in  perpetual  flight;  that  each  of 
them,    is    limited    by    time,    and    that    as    time    is 

lo  infinitely  divisible,  each  of  them  is  infinitely  divis- 
ible also ;  all  that  is  actual  in  it  being  a  single  mo- 
ment, gone  while  we  try  to  apprehend  it,  of  which 
it  may  ever  be  more  truly  said  that  it  has  ceased 
to  be  than  that  it  is.     To  such  a  tremulous  wisp 

15  constantly  reforming  itself  on  the  stream,  to  a  sin- 
gle sharp  impression,  with  a  sense  in  it,  a  relic  more 
or  less  fleeting,  of  such  moments  gone  by,  what  is 
real  in  our  life  fines  itself  down.  It  is  with  this 
movement,  with  the  passage  and  dissolution  of  im- 

20  pressions,  images,  sensations,  that  analysis  leaves 
ofif  —  that  continual  vanishing  away,  that  strange, 
perpetual  weaving  and  unweaving^  of  ourselves. 

Philosophircii,  says  Novalis,  ist  dephlegmatisiren 
viviUciren.  The  service  of  philosophy,  of  specula- 
5  tive  culture,  towards  the  human  spirit  is  to  rouse, 
to  startle  it  into  sharp  and  eager  observation.  / 
Every  moment  some  form  grows  perfect  in  hand 
or  face ;  some  tone  on  the  hills  or  the  sea  is  choicer 
than  the  rest ;  some  mood  of  passion  or  insight  or 

30  intellectual  excitement  is  irresistibly  real  and  at- 
tractive for  us, —  for  that  moment  only.  Not  the 
fruit  of  experience,  but  experience  itself,  is  the  end. 
A  counted  number  of  pulses  only  is  given  to  us 


22  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

of  a  variegated,  dramatic,  life.  How  may  we  see  in 
them  all  that  is  to  be  seen  in  them  by  the  finest 
senses?  How  shall  we  pass  most  swiftly  from 
point  to  point,  and  be  present  always  at  the  focus 
where  the  greatest  number  of  vital  forces  unite  ins 
their  purest  energy? 

To  burn  always  with  this  hard,  gemlike  flame,  to 
.maintain  this  ecstasy,  is  success  in  life.  In  a  sense 
it  might  even  be  said  that  our  failure  is  to  form 
habits :  for,  after  all,  habit  is  relative  to  a  stereo-  la 
typed  world,  and  meantime  it  is  only  the  roughness 
of  the  eye  that  makes  any  two  persons,  things, 
situations,  seem  alike.  While  all  melts  under  our 
feet,  we  may  well  catch  at  any  exquisite  p-'^^sion, 
or  any  contribution  to  knowledge  that  seems  by  a  15 
lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a  moment,  or 
any  stirring  of  the  senses,  strange  dyes,  strange 
colours,  and  curious  odours,  or  work  of  the  artist's 
hands,  or  the  face  of  one's  friend.  Not  to  discrimi- 
nate every  moment  some  passionate  attitude  in  20 
those  about  us,  and  in  the  brilliancy  of  their  gifts 
some  tragic  dividing  of  forces  on  their  ways,  is,  on 
this  short  day  of  frost  and  sun,  to  sleep  before 
evening.  With  this  sense  of  the  splendour  of  our 
experience  and  of  its  awful  brevity,  gathering  all  25 
we  are  into  one  desperate  efifort  to  see  and  touch, 
we  shall  hardly  have  time  to  make  theories  about 
the  things  we  see  and  touch.  What  we  have  to  do 
is  to  be  for  ever  curiously  testing  new  opinions  and 
courting  new  impressions,  never  acquiescing  in  a  30 
facile  orthodoxy  of  Comte,  or  of  Hegel,  or  of  our 
own.  Philosophical  theories  or  ideas,  as  points  of 
view,    instruments   of   criticism,   may   help   us   to 


/ 

CONCLUSION  23 

gather  up  what  might  otherwise  pass  unregarded 
by  us.  **  Philosophy  is  the  microscope  of  thought." 
The  theory  or  idea  or  system  which  requires  of  us 
the  sacrifice  of  any  part  of  this  experience,  in  con- 

5  sideration  of  some  interest  into  which  we  cannot 
enter,  or  some  abstract  theory  we  have  not  iden- 
tified with  ourselves,'  or  what  is  only  conventional, 
has  no  real  claim  upon  us. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  passages  in  the  writ- 

10  ings  of  Rousseau  is  that  in  the  sixth  book  of  the 
Confessions,  where  he  describes  the  awakening  in 
him  of  the  literary  sense.  An  undefinable  taint  of 
death  had  always  clung  about  him,  and  now  in 
e-  '^y  manhood  he  believed  himself  smitten  by  mor- 

15  tal  disease.  He  asked  himself  how  he  might  make 
as  much  as  possible  of  the  interval  that  remained ; 
and  he  was  not  biassed  by  anything  in  his  previous 
life  when  he  decided  that  it  must  be  by  intellectual 
excitement,  which  he  found  just  then  in  the  clear, 

20  fresh  writings  of  Voltaire.  Well !  we  are  all  con- 
damnes,  as  Victor  Hugo  says :  we  are  all  under  sen- 
tence of  death  but  with  a  sort  of  indefinite  reprieve 
—  les  hommes  sont  tons  condamnes  a  niorf  az'ec  dcs  siir- 

,  sis  indefinis:  we  have  an  interval,  and  then  our  place 

y^2s  knows  us  no  more.     Some  spend  this  interval  in 

listlessness,  some  in  high  passions,  the  wisest,  at 

\       least  among  '*  the  children  of  this  world,"  in  art  and 

song.      For  our  one  chance  lies  in  expanding  that 

interval,  in  getting  as  many  pulsations  as  possible 

30  into  the  given  time.  Great  passions  may  give  us 
this  quickened  sense  of  life,  ecstasy  and  sorrow  of 
love,  the  various  forms  of  enthusiastic  activity,  dis- 
interested or  otherwise,  which   come  naturally  to 


24  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

many  of  us.  Only  be  sure  it  is  passion  —  that  it 
does  yield  you  this  fruit  of  a  quickened,  multiplied 
consciousness.  Of  this  wisdom,  the  poetic  passion, 
the  desire  of  beauty,  the  love  of  art  for  art's  sake, 
has  most;  for  art  comes  to  you  professing  frankly 5 
to  give  nothing  but  the  highest  quality  to  your  mo- 
ments as  they  pass,  and  simply  for  those  moments' 
sake. 

(1868.     From  The  Renaissance,  1873.) 


Some  English  critics  at  the  beginning  of  the  pres- 
ent century  had  a  great  deal  to  say  concerning  a 
distinction,  of  much  importance,  as  they  thought, 
in  the  true  estimate  of  poetry,  between  the  Fancy, 
5  and  another  more  powerful  faculty  —  the  Imagina- 
tion.  This  metaphysical  distinction,  borrowed  orig- 
inally from  the  writings  of  German  philosophers, 
and  perhaps  not  always  clearly  apprehended  by 
those  who -talked  of  it,  involved  a  far  deeper  and 

:o  more  vital  distinction,  with  which  indeed  all  true 
criticism  more  or  less  directly  has  to  do,^he  dis- 
tinction, namely,  between  higher  and  lower  degrees 
of  intensity  in  the  poet's  perception  of  his  subject, 
and  in  his  corfcentration  of  himself  upon  his  work. 

15  Of  those  who  dwelt  upon  the  metaphysical  distinc- 
tion between  the  Fancy  and  the  Imagination,  it  was 
Wordsworth  who  made  the  most  of  it,  assuming  it 
as  the  basis  for  the  final  classiiication  of  his  poeti- 
c^  writings ;  and  it  is  in  these  writings  that   the 

20  deeper  and  more  vital  distinction,  which,  as  I  have 
said,  underlies  the  metaphysical  distinction,  is  most 
needed,  and  may  best  be  illustrated. 

For  nowhere  is  there  so  perplexed  a  mixture  as 
in  Wordsworth's  own  poetry,  of  work  touched  with 

25  injjense  jand  individual  poweivjwith  work  of  almost 
no__character  at  all.  He  has  much  (xmyentianal 
sentiment,  and  some  of  that  insincere  pogtic  diction, 
ngainst  which  his  most  serious  critical  efforts  were 

25 


26  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

directed :  the  reaction  in  his  poHtical  ideas,  conse- 
quent on  the  excesses  of  1795,  makes  him,  at  times, 
a  mere  declaimer  on  moral  and  social  topics;  and 
he  seems,  sometimes,  to  force  an  unwilling  pen,  and 
write  by  rule.  '^'Sy  making  the  most  of  theses 
blemishes  it  is  possible  to  obscure  the  true  aesthetic 
value  of  liis  work,  just  as  his  life  also,  a  life  of  much 
quiet  delicacy  and  independence,  might  easily  be 
placed  in  a  false  focus,  and  made  to  appear  a  some- 
what tame  theme  in  illustration  of  the  more  obvious  la 
parochial  virtues.  And  those  who  wish  to  under- 
stand his  influence,  and  experience  his  peculiar 
savour,  must  bear  with  patience  the  presence  of  an 
alien  elemient  in  Wordsworth's  work,  which  never 
coalesced  with  what  is  really  delightful  in  it,  nor  15 
underwent  his.5|)ecial  power.  Who  that  values  his 
writings  most  has'KoTfeltthe  intrusion  there,  from 
time  to  time,  of  something'tedious  and.p_rosaic?  Of 
all  poets  equally  great,Jie  would  gain  most  by  a 
skilfully  made  anthology.  Such  a  selection  would  20 
show,  in  truth,  not  so  miich  what  he  was,  or  to  him- 
self or  others  seemed  to  be,  as  what,  by  the  more 
energetic  and  fertile  quality  in  his  writings,  he  was 
ever  tending  to  become/  And  the  mixture  in  his 
work,  as  it  actually  stands,  is  so  perplexed,  that  one  25 
fears  to  miss  the  least  promising  composition  even, 
lest  some  precious  morsel  should  be  lying  hidden 
within — the  few  perfect  lines,  the  phrase,  the  single 
word  perhaps,  to  which  he  often  works  up  mechani- 
cally through  a  poem,  almost  the  whole  of  which  30 
may  be  tame  enough.  He  who  thought  that  in  all 
creative  work  the  larger  part  was  given  passively,  to 
the  recipient  mind^  who  waited  so  dutifully  upon  the 


WORDSWORTH  27 

gift,  to  whom  so  large  a  measure  was  sometimes 
given,  had  his  times  also  of  desertion  and  relapse ; 
and  he  has  permitted  the  impress  of  these  too  to 
remain  in  his  work.    cAnd  this  duality  there  —  the 

(fitfulness  with  which  the  higher  qualities  manifest 
themselves  in  it,  gives  the  effect  in  his  poetry  of  a 
power  not  altogether  his  own,  or  under  his  control, 
which  comes  and  goes  when  it  will,  lifting  or  lower; 
ing  a  matter,  poor  in  itself;  so  that  that  old  fancy 

10  which  made  the  poet's  art  an  enthusiasm,  a  form 
of  divine  possession,  seems  almost  literally  true  of 
him. 

This  constant  suggestion  of  an  absolute  duality 
between  higher  and  lower  moods,  and  the  work 

15  done  in  them,  stimulating  one  always  to  look  be- 
low the  surface,  makes  the  reading  of  Wordsworth 
an  excellent  sort  of  training  towards  the  things  of 
art  and  poetry.  It  begets  in  those,  who,  coming 
across  him  in  youths  can  bear  him  at  all,  a  habit  of 

20  reading  between  the  lines,  a  faith  in  the  effect  of 
concentration  and  collectedness  of  mind  in  the  right  .^ 
appreciation  of  poetry,  an  expectation  of  things,  in  ^^^^ 
this  order,  coming  to  one  by  means  of  a  right  dis-   ^ 
cipline  of  the  temper  as  well  as  of  the  intellect.     He    "J 

25  meets  us  with  the  promise  that  he  has  much,  and  y^ 
something  very  peculiar,  to  give  us,  if  we  will  follow  "^^ 
a  certain  difficult  way,  and  seems  to  have  the  secret 
of  a   special   and   privileged   state  of  mind.     And 
those  who  have  undergone  his  influence,  and  fol- 

30  lowed  this  difficult  way,  are  like  people  who  have 
passed  through  some  initiation,  a  disciplina  arcani, 
by  submitting  to  which  they  become  able  constantly 
to  distinguish  in  art,  speech,  feeling,  manners,  that 


28  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

which  is  ^rga;iic^  animated,  expressiye,  from  that 
which  is  only  conventional,  deriyatiye,  inexpressive. 
But  although  the  necessity  of  selecting  these 
precious  morsels  for  oneself  is  an  opportunity  for 
the  exercise  of  Wordsworth's  peculiar  influence,  and  5 

/  induces  a  kind  of  just  criticism  and  true  estimate 
of  it,  yet  the  purely  literary  product  would  have 
been  more  excellent,  had  the  writer  himself  purged 
away  that  alien  element.  How  perfect  would  have 
been  the  little  treasury,  shut  between  the  covers  of  lo 

/  how  thin  a  book!  Let  us  suppose  the  desired 
separation  made,  the  electric  thread  untwined,  the 
golden  pieces,  great  and  small,  lying  apart  together. 

i/What  are  the  peculiarities  of  this  residue?  What 
special  sense  does  Wordsworth  exercise,  and  what  15 
instincts  does  he  satisfy?  What  are  the  subjects 
and  the  motives  which  in  him  excite  the  imaginative 
faculty  ?  What  are  the  qualities  in  things  and  per- 
sons which  he  values,  the  impression  and  sense  of 
which  he  can  convey  to  others,  in  an  extraordinary  20 
\way? 

^      rAn  intimate  consciousness  of  the  expression  of 

X    PMP^^^   things,   which   weighs,   listens,  penetrates, 

^j^^wfiere  the  earlier  mind  passed  roughly  by,  is  a  large  25 

5";^    element  in 'the  complexion  of  modern  poetryj  It 

/  ]  has  been  remarked  as  a  fact  in  jriental  histor^^^ain 

{  .L-and  again.     It  reveals  itself  in  many  forms;  but  is 

strongest  and  most  attractive  in  what  is  strongest 

and  most  attractive  in  modern  literature.     It  is  ex-  30 

emplified,  almost  equally,  by  writers  as  unlike  each 

other  as  Senancour  and  Theophile  Gautier:  as  a 

singular  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  huma^:^  mind, 


I! 


WORDSWORTH  29 

r  ^^ 
its    growth    might    be   traced    from    Rousseau    to 
Chateaubriand,     from     Chateaubriand     to     Victor 
Hugo :  it  has  doubtless  some  latent  connexion  with 
those  pantheistic  theories  which  locate  an  intelli- 

5  gent  soul  in  material  things,  and  have  largely  ex- 
ercised men's  minds  in  some   rnodfirn  systems^  of  '^ 
philo^ophy,„:  it  is  traceable  even  in  the  graver  writ-   , 
ings   of  liistori^HS :   it   makes   as   much   difference 
between  ancient  and  modern  landscape  art,  as  there  ^ 

10  is  between  the  rough  masks  of  an  early  mosaic  and 
a  portrait  by  Reynolds  or  Gainsborough.     0{_this.      «• 
new  sense,  the  writings  of  Wordsworth  are  the  cen-  ^  "^ 
tral  and  elementary  expression :  he  is  more  simply 
and  entirely  occupied  with  it  than  any  other  poet, 

15  though  there  are  fine  expressions  of  precisely  the 

same  thing  in  so  different  a  poet  as  Shelley.     There__ 

was  in  his  own  character  a  certain  contentment,  a 

sort   of   inborn    religious   placidity,   seldom   found 

united  with  a  sensibility  so  mobile  as  his,  which 

zb  was  favourable  to  the  quiet,  habitual  observation  of 
inanimate,  or  imperfectly  animate,  existence.     His  ' 
life  of  eighty  years  is  divided  by  no  very  profoundly 
felt  incidents  :  its  changes  are  almost  wholly  inward, 
and  it  falls  into  broad,  untroubled,  perhaps  some- 

25  what  monotonous  spaces.  CWhat  it  most  resembles   \J^ 
is  the  life  of  one  of  those  early  Italian  or  Flemish  ^^ 
painters,  who,  just  because  their  minds  were  full  ^t^^ 
of  heavenly  visions,  passed,  some  of  them,  the  bet- 
ter part  of  sixty  years  in  quiet,  systematic  industry^ 

30  This  placid  life  matured  a  quite  miusual  sensibility,  ^^ 
really  iimate-^in^him,  to  the  ^h.ts  and~sounds  of  tFe 
natural  world  —  the  flower  and  its  shadow  on  the 
stone,   the. cuckoo  and   its   echo.     The   poem   of 


30  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

Resolution  and  Independence  is  a  storehouse  of  such 
records :  for  its  fulness  of  imagery  it  may  be  com- 
pared to  Keats 's  Saint  Agnes'  Eve.  To  read  one  of 
his  longer  pastoral  poems  for  the  first  time,  is  like  a 
day  spent  in  a  new  country  :  the  memory  is  crowded  5 
for  a  while  with  its  precise  and  vivid  incidents  — 

"  The  pliant  harebell  swinging  in  the  breeze 
On  some  grey  rock";  — 

"  The  single  sheep  and  the  one  blasted  tree 
And  the  bleak  music  from  that  old  stone  wail  ";  — 

"  And  in  the  meadows  and  the  lower  grounds 
Was  all  the  sweetness  of  a  common  dawn";  — 

"  And  that  green  corn  all  day  is  rustling  in  thine  ears." 

s/  '  Clear  and  delicate  at  once,  as  he  is  in  the  outlin-  u 
ing  of  visible  imagery,  he  is  more  clear  and  delicate  / 
still,  and  finely  scrupulous,  in  the  noting  of  sounds ; ' 
so  that  he  conceives  of  noble  sound  as  even  mould-  10 
ing  the  human  countenance  to  nobler  types,  and  as 
something  actually  "  profaned  "  by  colour,  by  visi- 
ble form,  or  image.     He  has  a  power  likewise  of  ^ 

,  realising,  and  conveying  to  the  consciousness  of 
the  reader,  abstract  and  elementary  impressions  —  is 
silence,  darkness,  absolute  motionlessness  :  or,  again, 
the  whole  complex  sentiment  of  a  particular  place, 
the  abstract  expression  of  desolation  in  the  long 
white  road,  of  peacefulness  in  a  particular  folding 
of  the  hills.  In  the  airy  building  of  the  brain,  a  20 
special  day  or  hour  even,  comes  to  have  for  him  a 
sort  of  personal  identity,  a  spirit  or  angel  given  to 
it,  by  which,  for  its  exceptional  insight,  or  the  happy 
light  upon  it,  it  has  a  presence  in  one's  history,  and 


WORDSWORTH  31 

acts  there,  as  a  separate  power  or  accomplishment ; 
and  he  has  celebrated  in  many  of  his  poems  the 
"  efficacious  spirit,"  which,  as  he  says,  resides  in 
these  "  particular  spots  "  of  time. 
5  It  is  to  such  a  world,  and  to  a  world  of  congruous 
meditation  thereon,  that  we  see  him  retiring  in  his 
but  lately  published  poem  of  The  Recluse  —  taking 
leave,  without  much  count  of  costs,  of  the  world  of 
business,  of  action  and  ambition,  as  also  of  all  that  ^ 

10  for  the  majority  of  mankind  counts  as  sensuous  ^^ 

enjoyment. 

;And  so  it  came  about  that  this  seiise  of  a  life  in 
natural  objects,  which  in  most  poetry  is  but  a  rhe-      ^^ 
torical  artifice,  is  with  \^Qr.dswQrth.  th^  assertion  7,.^^ 

15  of   what   for   him   is   almost   literal   fact/""^  To    him  \ 
every   natural   object   seemed  to   possess   more  or 
less  of  a  moral  or  spiritual  life,  to  be  capable  of  a 
companionship  with  man,  full  of  expression,  of  in- 
explicable  affinities   and   delicacies   of  intercourse. 

20  An  emanation,  a  particular  spirit,  belonged,  not  to 
the  moving  leaves  or  water  only,  but  to  the  distant 
peak  of  the  hills  arising  suddenly,  by  some  change 
of  perspective,  above  the  nearer  horizon,  to  the 
passing  space  of  light  across  the  plain,  to  the  lich- 

25  ened  Druidic  stone  even,  for  a  certain  weird  fellow- 
ship in  it  with  the  moods  of  men.<M;t  was  like  a 
"  survival,"  in  the  peculiar  intellectual  temperament  ^v^  "^ 
of  a jnan-oijetters  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, of  that  primitive  condition,  which  some  phi- 

30  losophers  have  traced  in  the  general  history  of 
human_culture,  wherein  all  outward  objects  alike, 
including  even  the  works  of  men's  hands,  were 
believed  to  be  endowed  with  animation,  and  the 


Z2  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER       . 

world  was  "  full  of  souls  '' —  that  mood  in  which  the 
old  Greek  gods  were  first  begotten,  and  which  had 
many  strange  aftergrowths. 

In  the  early  ages,  this  belief,  delightful  as  its 
effects  on  poetry  often  are,  was  but  the  result  of  as 
crude  intelligence.  But,  in  Wordsworth,  such 
power  of  seeing  life,  such  perception  of  a  soul,  in 
inanimate  things,  came  of  an  exceptional  suscepti- 
bility to  the  impressions  of  eye  and  ear,  and  was, 

Un  its  essence,  a  kind  of  sensuousness.     At  least,  itio 
is  only  in  a  temperament  exceptionally  susceptible 
on  the  sensuous  side,  that  this  sense  of  the  expres- 
siveness of  outward  things  comes  to  be  so  large  a 

/  part  of  life.     That  he  awakened  ''  a  sort  of  thought 
in  sense,"  is  Shelley's  just  estimate  of  this  element  15 
in  Wordsworth's  poetry. 

.And  it  was  through  nature,  thus  ennobled  by  a 
semblance  of  passion  and  thought  that  hg__ap- 
proached  the  spectacle  of  human  li|^  Human  life, 
indeed,  is  for  him,  at  first,  only  an  additional,  acci-20 
dental  grace  on  an  expressive  landscape.  When 
he  thought  of  man,  it  was  of  man  as  in  the  pres- 
ence and  under  the  influence  of  these  effective 
natural  objects,  and  linked  to  them  by  many  asso- 
ciations. The  close  connexion  of  man  with  natural  25 
objects,  the  habitual  association  of  his  thoughts  and 
feelings  with  a  particular  spot  of  earth,  has  some- 
times seemed  to  degrade  those  who  are  subject  to 
its  influence,  as  if  it  did  but  reinforce  that  physical 
connexion  of  our  nature  with  the  actual  lime  and  30 
clay  of  the  soil,  which  is  always  drawing  us  nearer 
to  our  end.  But  for  Wordsworth,  these  influences 
tended  to  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  because 


WORDSWORTH  33 

i 

they  tended  to  tranquillise  it.     By  raising  nature 

/  to  the  ieyel_of_human  thought  Tie^ gives  it  power 

/  and  expression :  he  subdues  man  to  the  level  of 
nature,  an^d  J^ives  him  thereby  a  certain  breadth 
5  and  coolness  and  soFemnity.  The  leech-gatherer 
on  the  moor,  the  woman  "  stepping  westward,"  are 
for  him  natural  objects,  almost  in  the  same  sense  ^ 
as  the  aged  thorn,  or  the  lichened  rock  on  the  heath. 
In  this  sense  the  leader  of  the  "  Lake  School,"  in 

10  spite  of  an  Pi^rnp<;t  preoccupation  with  man,  his 
thoughts,  his  "3estiny,  is  the  poet  of  nature.  And  of 
nature,  after  all,  in  its  modesty.  The  English  lake 
country  has,  of  course,  its  grandeurs.  But  the 
peculiar  function  of  Wordsworth's  genius,  as  car- 

15  rying  in  it  a  power  to  open  out  the  soul  of  appa- 
rently little  or  familiar  things,  would  have  found  its 
true  test  had  he  become  the  poet  of  Surrey,  say! 
and  the  prophet  of  its  life.  The  glories  of  Italy 
and  Switzerland,  though  he  did  write  a  little  about 

20  them,  had  too  potent  a  material  life  of  their  own 
to  serve  greatly  his  poetic  purpose. 

Religious  sentiment,  consecrating  the  affections 
and  natural  regrets  of  the  human  heart,  above  all, 
/  that  pitiful  awe  and  care  for  the  perishing  humarf)  ;' 

25  clay,  of  which  r^ejic^worship  is  but  the  corruption, 
has  always  had  much  to  do  Vv^ith  localities,  with  the 
thoughts  which  attach  themselves  to  actual  scenes 
and  places.  Now  what  is  true  of  it  everywhere,  is 
truest   of  it  in  those   secluded   valleys  where   one 

30  generation  after  another  maintains  the  same  abid- 
ing-place ;  and  it  was  on  this  side,  that  Wordsworth 
apprehended  religion  most  strongly.       Consisting, 
as  it  did  so  much,  in  the  recognition  of  local  sanc- 
3 


34  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

tities,    in   the  habit  of  connecting  the   stones  and    j 
trees  of  a  particular  spot  of  earth  with  the  great   \ 
events  of  life,  till  the  low  walls,  the  green  mounds, 
the  half-obliterated  epitaphs  seemed  full  of  voices, 
and  a  sort  of  natural  oracles,  the  very  religion  of  5 
these  people  of  the  dales  appeared  but  as  another 
link  between  them  and  the  earth,  and  was  literally 
a    religion    of    nature.     It    tranquillised    them    by 
bringing  them  under  the  placid  rule  of  traditional 
and  narrowly  localised  observances.   "  Grave  livers,"  10 
they  seemed  to  him,  under  this  aspect,  with  stately 
speech,  and   something  of  that  natural  dignity  of 
manners,  which  underlies  the  highest  courtesy. 

And,  seeing  man  thus  as  a  part  of  nature,  ele- 
vated and  solemnised  in  proportion  as  his  daily  life  15 
and  occupations  brought  him  into  companionship 
with  permanent  natural  objects,  his  very  religion 
forming  new  links  for  him  w4th  the  narrow  limits 
of  the  valley,   the   low  vaults   of  his  church,   the 
rough  stones  of  his  home,  made  intense  for  him  20 
now   with   profound   sentiment,    Wordsworth   was 
able  to  appreciate  passion  in  the  lowly.    He  chooses 
to  depict  people  from  humble  life,  because,  being 
nearer  to  nature  than  others,  they  are  on  the  whole 
more  impassioned,   certainly  more  direct  in  their  25 
expression    of  passion,  than   other   men :   it  is  for 
this   direct   expression  of   passion,  that  he  values 
their  humble  words.     In  much  that  he  said  in  ex- 
altation of  rux^jlife,  he  was  but.pleading  indirectly  ,- 
for  that  ^^nrcenfy^tliat  perfect  Melity  to  one's  own^ 

/inwar3^  presentati^^nv'to  the  precise  features  of  the^ 
picture  within,  without  which  any  profound  poetry 
is  impossible.     It  wal^noFTor  their  tameness,  but 


WORDSWORTH  35 

for  this  passionate  sincerity,  that  he  chose  incidents 
and  situations  from  common  life,  "  related  in  a  se- 
lection of  language  really  used  by  men."     He 'con- 
stantly endeavours  to  bring  his  language  near  to 
5  the  real  language  of  men :  to  the  real  language  of 
men,  however,  not  on  the  dead  level  of  their  ordi-  ,, 
nary  intercourse,  but   in  select   mornents  of  vivid /jjH'*'' 
sensation,   when   this   language   is   winnowed   and 
ennobled   by   excitement.      There   are   poets   who 
lo  have    chosen    rural    life    as    their    subject,   for    the 
sake    of   its    passionless    repose,    and    times    when 
Wordsworth  himself  extols  the  mere  calm  and  dis- 
passionate survey  of  things  as  the  highest  aim  of 
poetical  culture.     But  it  was  not  for  such  passion- 
15  less  calm  that  he  preferred  the  scenes  of  pastoral 
life ;  and  the  meditative  poet,  sheltering  himself,  as 
it  might  seem,  from  the  agitations  of  the  outward 
world,  is  in  reality  only  clearing  the  scene  for  the 
great  exhibitions  of  emotion,  and  what  he  values 
20  most  is  the  almost  elementary  expression  of  ele- 
mentary feelings.  ,.,.,^   \ 
.„.  And  so  he  has  much  for  those  who  value  highly /v^^a- 
/    the  concentrated  presentment  of  passion,/ who  ap-r"  V.  • 
"■■-praiTe" men  and  women  by  their  susceptimlity  to  it,  1     J  ' 
25  and  art  and^p^aelry^-as- they  afford  the  spectacle  of  \xj 
Breaking  from  time  to  time  into  the  pensive  spec- 
tacle of  their  daily  toil,  their  occupations  near  to 
nature,  come  those  great  elementary  feelings,  lift- 
ing and  solemnising  their  language  and  giving  it  a 
30  natural  music.     The  great,  distinguishing  passion 
^     came  to  Michael  by  the  sheepfold,  to  Ruth  by  the 
'    wayside,  adding  these  humble  children  of  the  fur- 
row to  the  true  aristocracy  of  passionate  souls.     In 


36  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

this  respect,  Wordsworth's  work  resembles  most 
that  of  George  Sand,  in  those  of  her  novels  which 
depict  country  life.^  With  a  penetrative  pathos, 
rtPh  puts  mm  m  the  same  rank  with  the  masters 
of  the  sentiment  of  pity  in  literature,  with  Meinhold  5 
and  Victor  Hugo,  he  collects  all  the  traces  of  vivid 
excitement  which  were  to  be  found  in  that  pastoral 
Id  —  the  girl  who  rung  her  father's  knell ;  the 
unborn  infant  feeling  about  its  mother's  heart ;  the 
instinctive  touches  of  children ;  the  sorrows  of  the  lo 
wild  creatures,  even  —  their  home-sickness,  their 
strange  yearnings ;  the  tales  of  passionate  regret 
that  hang  by  a  ruined  farm-building,  a  heap  of 
stones,  a  deserted  sheepfold ;  that  gay,  false,  adven- 
turous, outer  world,  which  breaks  in  from  time  to  15 
time  to  bewilder  and  deflower  these  quiet  homes; 
not  "  passionate  sorrow  "  only,  for  the  overthrow 
of  the  soul's  beauty,  but  the  loss  of,  or  carelessness 
for  personal  beauty  even,  in  those  whom  men  have 
wronged — their  pathetic  wanness;  the  sailor  "who, 20 
in  his  heart,  was  half  a  shepherd  on  the  stormy 
seas  " ;  the  wild  woman  teaching  her  child  to  pray 
for  her  betrayer;  incidents  like  the  making  of  the 
shepherd's  stafif,  or  that  of  the  young  boy  laying 
the  first  stone  of  the  sheepfold;  —  all  the  pathetic 25 
episodes  of  their  humble  existence,  their  longing, 
their  wonder  at  fortune,  their  poor  pathetic  pleas- 
ures, like  the  pleasures  of  children,  won  so  hardly 
in  the  struggle  for  bare  existence;  their  yearning 
towards  each  other,  in  their  darkened  houses,  or  30 
at  their  early  toil.  /A  sort  of  biblical  depth  and 
•  Solemnity  hangs  over  this  strange,  new,  passionate, 
{pastoral  world,  of  which  he  first  raised  the  image. 


WORDSWORTH  yj 

I   and  the  reflection  of  which  some  of  our  best  modern 
\  fiction  has  caught  from  him. 

He  pondered  much  over  the  philosophy  of  his 
5  poetry,  and  reading  deeply  in  the  history  of  his  own 
mind,  seems  at  times  to  have  passed  the  borders 
of  a  world  of  strange  speculations,  inconsistent 
enough,  had  he  cared  to  note  such  inconsistencies, 
with  those  traditional  beliefs,  which  were  otherwise 

lo  the  object  of  his  devout  acceptance.  Thinking  of 
the  high  value  he  set  upon  customariness,  upon  all 
that  is  habitual,  local,  rooted  in  the  ground,  in  mat- 
ters of  religious  sentiment,  you  might  sometimes 
regard  him  as  one  tethered  down  to  a  world,  re- 

15  fined  and  peaceful  indeed,  but  with  no  broad  out- 
look, a  world  protected,  but  somewhat  narrowed, 
by  the  influence  of  received  ideas.  But  he  is  at 
times  also  something  very  different  from  this,  and 
something  much  bolder.     A  chance  expression  is 

20  overheard  and  placed  in  a  new  connexion,  the  sud- 
den memory  of  a  thing  long  past  occurs  to  him,  a 
distant  object  is  relieved  for  a  while  by  a  random 
gleam  of  light  —  accidents  turning  up  for  a  mo- 
ment what  lies  below  the  surface  of  our  immediate 

25  experience  —  and  he  passes  from  the  humble  graves 
and  lowly  arches  of  "  the  little  rock-like  pile  "  of  a 
Westmoreland  church,  on  bold  trains  of  speculative 
thought,  and  comes,  from  point  to  point,  into 
strange  contact  with  thoughts  which  have  visited, 

30  from  time  to  time,  far  more  venturesome,  perhaps 
errant,  spirits. 

He  had  pondered  deeply,  for  instance,  on  those 
stranqre  reminiscences  and  forebodings,  which  seem 


38  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

to  make  our  lives  stretch  before  and  behind  us,  be- 
yond where  we  can  see  or  touch  anything,  or  trace 
the  lines  of  connexion.     Following  the  soul,  back- 
wards  and   forwards,   on   these  endless   ways,   his 
x^'^^sense   of  man's   dim,   potential   powers   became   as 
pledge  to  him,  indeed,  of  a" future  life,  but  carried 
him  back  also  to  that  mysterious  notion  of  an  ear- 
.     lier  state  of  existence  —  the  fancy  of  the  Platonists 
^  —  the  old  heresy  of  Origen.     It  was  in  this  mood 
that   he  conceived  those  oft-reiterated  regrets  forio 
a  half-ideal  childhood,  when  the  relics  of  Paradise 
still    clung    about    the    soul  —  a    childhood,    as    it 
seemed,  full  of  the  fruits  of  old  age,  lost  for  all,  in 
a  degree,  in  the  passing  away  of  the  youth  of  the 
world,  lost  for  each  one,  over  again,  in  the  passing  15 
away  of  actual  youth.     It  is  this  ideal  childhood 
which  he  celebrates  in  his  famous  Ode  on  the  Recol- 
lections of  Childhood,  and  some  other  poems  which 
may  be  grouped  around  it,  such  as  the  lines  on 
Tintern  Abbey,  and  something  like  what  he  describes 20 
was  actually  truer  of  himself  than  he  seems  to  have 
understood ;  for  his  own  most  delightful  poems  w^ere 
/"really  the  instinctive  productions  of  earlier  life,  and 
S  most  surelyTor  him,  "  the  first  diviner  influence  of 
'^this   world"   passed   aw^ay,    more  and   more   com- 25 
(^pletely,  in  his  contact  with  experience, 
y     Sometimes  as  he  dwelt  upon  those  moments  of 
<^  niQ.found,  jmaginatiye  power,  in  whicU  the  outward 
\  objecTappears  to  take  colour  and  expression,  a  new 
y  nature  almost,  from  the  prompting  of  the  observant  30 
/  mind,  the  actual  world  would,  as  it  were,  dissolve 
/    and    detach   itself,   flake   by   flake,  and   he  himself 
seemed  to  be  the  creator,  and  when  he  would  the 


WORDSWORTH  39 

destroyer,  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived  —  that  old 
isolating  thought  of  many  a  brain-sick- jnyatic  of 
ancient  and  modeni_tirnes. 

At  other  times,  again,  in  those  periods  of  intense 

5  susceptibility,  in  which  he  appeared  to  himself  as     .  . 
but  the  passive  recipient  of  external  influences,  Jhe  J 
was_attracted  by  the  thought  of  a  spirit  of  life  in 
outvvarcl    things,    a    single,   all-pervading   mind   in 
them,  of  which  man,  and  even  the  poet's  imagina-  "f* 

lo  tlvF^ergy,  are  but  moments  —  that  old  dream  of 
th^anima  viiindi,  the  mother  of  all  things  and  their 
grave,  in  'whicTi  some  had  desired  to  lose  them- 
selves, and  others  had  become  indifferent  to  the 
distinctions  of  good  and  evil.    It  would  come,  some- 

15  times,  like  the  sign  of  the  macrocosm  to  Faust  in 
his  cell :  the  network  of  man  and  nature  was  seen 
to  be  pervaded  by  a  common,  universal  life :  a  new, 
bold  thought  lifted  him  above  the  furrow,  above  the 
green  turf  of  the  Westmoreland  churchyard,  to  a 

20  world  altogether  different  in  its  vagueness  and  vast- 
ness,  and  the  narrow  glen  was  full  of  the  brooding 
power  of  one  universal  spirit. 

/  7^ 

/And  so  he  has  something,  also,  for  those  who  feel  y-  v 
25  the  fascination  of  bold  speculative  ideas,  who  are'v 
really  capable  of  rising  upon  them  to  conditions  of  ^ 
poetical  thought/  He  uses  them,  indeed,  always 
with_a  very  fine^ apprehension  of  the  limits  within 
which    alone   philosophical    imaginings    have    any 
30  place   in    true   poetry ;    and   using   them    only   for 
poetical  purposes,  is  not  too  careful  even  to  make 
them  consistent  with  each  other.     To  him,  theories 
which  for  other  men  bring  a  world  of  technical  die- 


40  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

tion,  brought   perfect  form  and  expression,  as  in 
those  two  lofty  books  of  the  Prelude,  which  describe 
the  decay  and  the  restoration  of  Imagination  and 
Taste.     Skirting  the  borders  of  this  world  of  be- 
wildering heights  and  depths,  he  got  but  the  firsts 
^..  exciting  influence  of  it,  tha^joyfuLjenthusiam  which 
^      great  imaginative  theories  prompt/ when  the  mind 
first  comes  to  have  an  understanding  of  them ;  and 
it  is  not  under  the  influence  of  these  thoughts  that 
his  poetry  becomes  tedious  or  loses  its  blitheness.  lo 
He  keeps  them,  too,  always  y^ithin-certain  etiiical 
I/-  baunds.^'so  that  no  word  of  his  could  oflend  the 
^ysimple^t  of  those  shn^e  souls  which  are  always  the 
'<  Jargest  portion  of  mankmd.%But  it  is,  nevertheless, 
j**^     the  contact  of  these  thoughts,  the  speculative  bold- 15 
ness  in  them,  which  constitutes,  at  least  for  some 
minds,  the   secret  attraction  of  much  of  his   best 
poetry— ^the  sudden  passage  from  lowly  thoughts 
and  places  to  the  majestic  forms  of  philosophical 
imagination,  the  play  of  these  forms  over  a  world  20 
so  different,  enlarging  so  strangely  the  bounds  of 
its  humble  churchyards,  and  breaking  such  a  wild 
light  on  the  graves  of  christened  children^ 

(And  these  moods  always  brought  with  them  fault- 
less expression.     In  regard  to  expression^^^  with  25 
feeling:  and  thought,  the  duality  of  the  Jiighef  and 
lower  ^oods   was   absolute.      It  belonged  to  the 
higher,  the  imaginative  mood,  and  was  the  pledge 
^  of  its^reality,  to  bring  the  appropriate  language  with 
I  i  it.  \In  him,  when  the  really  poetical  motive  worked  30 
/  j  at  an,  it  united,  with  absolute  justice,  the  word  and 
I  the  idea ;  each,  in  the  imaginatiy^.-flame,  becoming 
.^^inseparably  one  with  the  other,  by  that  f usioi 


WORDSWORTH  45 

moral  significance  of  art  and  poetry.  \  Wordsworth^^  1)4 
and  other  poets  who  have  been  Hke  him  in  ancient  ,  p^ 
or   more  recent  times,  are  the  masters,  the  experts,   ^ 
in  this  art   of  impassioned  contemplation.     Their 
5  work  is,  not  to  teach  lessons,  or  enforce  rules,  or   j 
even  to  stimulate  us  to  noble  ends ;  but  to  withdraw  / 
the  thoughts  for  a  little  while  from  the  mere  ma- 
chinery of  life,  to  fix  them,  with  appropriate  emo- 
tions, on  the  spectacle  of  those  great  facts  in  man's 

10  existence  which  no  machinery  affects,  ''  on  the  great 
and  universal  passions  of  men,  the  most  general 
and  interesting  of  their  occupations,  and  the  entire 
world  of  nature,"  —  on  "  the  operations  of  the  ele- 
ments and  the  appearances  of  the  visible  universe, 

15  on  storm  and  sunshine,  on  the  revolutions  of  the 
seasons,  on  cold  and  heat,  on  loss  of  friends  and 
kindred,  on  injuries  and  resentments,  on  gratitude., 
and  hope,  on  fear  and  sorrow."  To  witness  this] 
spectacle  with  appropriate  emotions  is  the  aim  of/ 

20  all    culture ;    and    of    these    emotions    poetry    like 
Wordsworth's  is  a  great  nourishcr  and  stimulant,     i 
He  sees  nature  full  of  sentiment  and  excitement  f 
he  sees  men  and  women  as  parts  of  nature,  pas- 
sionate, excited,  in  strange  grouping  and  connexion 

25  with  the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  natural  world : 
—  images,  in  his  own  words,  "  of  man  suffering, 
amid  awful  forms  and  powers."  P^'^  ^ 

Such  is  the  figure  of  the  more  powerful  and  orig- 

30  inal  poet,  hidden  away,  in  part,  under  those  weaker 

elemxcnts  in  Wordsworth's  poetry,  which  for  some 

minds    determine    their    entire    character ;    a    poet 

somewhat  bolder  and  more  passionate  than  might 


46  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

at  first  sight  be  supposed,  but  not  too  bold  for  tr^ie 
poetical  taste;  an  unimpassioned  writer,  you  mig,  't 
sometimes  fancy„{}[et  thinking  the  chief  aim,  in  life 
and  art  alike,  to  be  a  certain  deep  emotion;  seek- 
ing most  often  the  great  elementary  passions  ins 
lowly  places ;  having  at  least  this  condition  of  all 
impassioned  work,  that  he  aims  always  at  an  abso- 
lute sincerity  of  feeling  and  diction,  so  that  he  is 
the  true  forerunner  of  the  deepest  and  most  pas- 
sionate poetry  of  our  own  day ;  yet  going  back  la 
also,  with  something  of  a  protest  against  the  con- 
ventional fervour  of  much  of  the  poetry  popular  in 
his  own  time,  to  those  older  English  poets,  whose 
unconscious  likeness  often  comes  out  in  him. 

(From  the  Fortnightly  Review,  April,  1874.    Appreciations, 
1889.) 


^^ 


Zhc  Cbilb  in  tbe  Ibouse 


,/ 


As  Florian  Dd^al  walked,  one  hot  afternoon,  he 
overtook  by  the  'wayside  a  poor  aged  man,  and,  as 
he  seemed  weary  with  the  road,  helped  him  on  with 
the  burden  which  he  carried,  a  certain  distance. 
5  And  as  the  man  told  his  story,  it  chanced  that  he 
named  the  place,  a  little  place  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  a  great  city,  where  Florian  had  passed  his  earliest 
years,  but  which  he  had  never  since  seen,  and,  the 
story  told,  went  forward  on  his  journey  comforted. 

lo  And  that  night,  like  a  reward  for  his  pity,  a  dream 
of  that  place  came  to  Florian,  a  dream  which  did  for 
him  the  ofBce  of  the  finer  sort  of  memory,  bringing 
its  object  to  mind  with  a  great  clearness,  yet,  as 
sometimes  happens  in  dreams,  raised  a  little  above 

15  itself,  and  above  ordinary  retrospect.  The  true 
aspect  of  the  place,  especially  of  the  house  there  in 
which  he  had  lived  as  a  child,  the  fashion  of  its 
doors,  its  hearths,  its  windows,  the  very  scent  upon 
the  air  of  it,  was  with  him  in  sleep  for  a  season; 

20  only,  with  tints  more  musically  blent  on  wall  and 
floor,  and  some  finer  light  and  shadow  running  in 
and  out  along  its  curves  and  angles,  and  with  all 
its  little  carvings  daintier.  He  awoke  with  a  sigh 
at  the  thought  of  almost  thirty  years  which  lay  be- 

25  tween  him  and  that  place,  yet  with  a  flutter  of  pleas- 
ure still  within  him  at  the  fair  light,  as  if  it  were  a 
smile,  upon  it.  And  it  happened  that  this  accident 
of  his  dream  was  just  the  thing  needed  for  the  be- 

47 


48  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

ginning  of  a  certain  design  he  then  had  in  view, 
the  noting,  namely,  of  some  things  in  the  story  of 
his  spirit  —  in  that  process  of  brain-building  by 
which  we  are,  each  one  of  us,  what  we  are.  With 
the  image  of  the  place  so  clear  and  favourable  5 
upon  him,  he  fell  to  thinking  of  himself  therein, 
and  how  his  thoughts  had  grown  up  to  him.  In 
that  half-spiritualised  house  he  could  watch  the  bet- 
ter, over  again,  the  gradual  expansion  of  the  soul 
which  had  come  to  be  there  —  of  which  indeed,  lo 
through  the  law  which  makes  the  material  objects 
about  them  so  large  an  element  in  children's  lives, 
it  had  actually  become  a  part ;  inward  and  outward 
being  woven  through  and  through  each  other  into 
one  inextricable  texture  —  half,  tint  and  trace  and  15 
accident  of  homely  colour  and  form,  from  the  wood 
and  the  bricks ;  half,  mere  soul-stuf¥,  floated  thither 
from  who  knows  how  far.  In  the  house  and  garden 
of  his  dream  he  saw  a  child  moving,  and  could  divide 
the  main  streams  at  least  of  the  winds  that  had  20 
played  on  him,  and  study  so  the  first  stage  in  that 
mental  journey. 

The  old  house,  as  when  Florian  talked  of  it  after- 
wards he  always  called  it,  (as  all  children  do,  who 
can  recollect  a  change  of  home,  soon  enough  but  25 
not  too  soon  to  mark  a  period  in  their  lives)  really 
was  an  old  house ;  and  an  element  of  French  descent 
in  its  inmates  —  descent  from  Watteau,  the  old 
court-painter,  one  of  whose  gallant  pieces  still  hung 
in  one  of  the  rooms  —  might  explain,  together  30 
with  some  other  things,  a  noticeable  trimness  and 
comely  whiteness  about  everything  there  —  the 
curtains,  the  couches,  the  paint  on  the  walls  with 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  49 

which  the  light  and  shadow  played  so  delicately; 
might  explain  also  the  tolerance  of  the  great  pop- 
lar in  the  garden,  a  tree  most  often  despised  by 
English  people,  but  which  French  people  love,  hav- 
5  ing  observed  a  certain  fresh  way  its  leaves  have  of 
/dealing  with  the  wind,  making  it  sound,  in  never  so 
/  slight  a  stirring  of  the  air,  like  running  water. 
^        The  old-fashioned,  low  wainscoting  went  round 
the  rooms,  and  up  the  staircase  with  carved  balus- 
•jo  ters  and  shadowy  angles,  landing  half-way  up  at  a 
broad  window,  with  a  swallow's  nest  below  the  sill, 
,  and  the  blossom  of  an  old  pear-tree  showing  across 
I  it  in  late  April,  against  the  blue,  below  which  the 
(  perfumed  juice  of  the  find  of  fallen  fruit  in  autumn 
15  was  so  fresh.     At  the  next  turning  came  the  closet 
which  held  on  its  deep  shelves  the  best  china.    Lit- 
tle angel  faces  and  reedy  flutings  stood  out  round 
the  fireplace  of  the  children's  room.     And  on  the 
top  of  the  house,  above  the  large  attic,  where  the 
20  white  mice  ran  in  the  twilight  —  an  infinite,  unex- 
plored   wonderland    of    childish    treasures,    glass 
beads,   empty   scent-bottles   still    sweet,    thrum    of 
coloured  silks,  among  its  lumber  —  a  flat  space  of 
roof,  railed  round,  gave  a  view  of  the  neighbouring 
25  steeples ;   for   the  house,   as   I   said,   stood  near   a 
great   city,  which  sent  up  heavenwards,  over  the 
twisting  weather-vanes,  not  seldom,  its  beds  of  roll- 
ing cloud  and  smoke,  touched  with  storm  or  sun- 
^  ihine.  |  But  the  child  of  whom  I  am  writing  did 
30  not  hate  the  fog  because  of  the  crimson  lights  which 
fell  from  it  sometimes  upon  the  chimneys,  and  the 
whites   which   gleamed   through   its   openings,   on 
summer  mornings,  on  turret  or  pavement.     For  it 
4 


// 


so  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

is  false  to  suppose  that  a  child's  sense  of  beauty  is' 
dependent  on  any  choiceness  or  special  fineness,  in 
the  objects  which  present  themselves  to  it,  though 
this  indeed  comes  to  be  the  rule  with  most  of  us 
in  later  life;   earlier,  in   some  degree,  we  see  in- 5 
wardly ;  and  the  child  finds  for  itself,  and  with  un- 
stinted delight,  a  difference  for  the  sense,  in  those 
whites  and  reds  through  the  smoke  on  very  homely 
buildings,  and  in  the  gold  of  the  dandelions  at  the 
road-side,   just  beyond   the   houses,    where   not   aia 
handful  of  earth  is  virgin  and  untouched,  in  the 
lack  of  better  ministries  to  its  desire  of  beauty. 
/  This  house  then  stood  not  far  beyond  the  gloom 
ind  rumours  of  the  town,  among  high  garden-walls, 
fcright  all  summer-time  with  Golden-rod,  and  brown-15 
and-golden  Wall-flower  —  Flos  Parictis,  as  the  chil- 
dren's Latin-reading  father  taught  them  to  call  it, 
while  he  was  with  them.     Tracing  back  the  threads 
of  his  complex  spiritual  habit,  as  he  was  used  in 
after  years  to  do,  Florian  found  that  he  owed  to  20 
the  place  many  tones  of  sentiment  afterwards  cus- 
tomary with  him,  certain  inward  lights  under  which 
things  most  naturally  presented  themselves  to  him. 
The  coming  and  going  of  travellers  to  the  town 
along  the  way,  the  shadow  of  the  streets,  the  sud-25 
den  breath  of  the  neighbouring  gardens,  the  singu- 
lar brightness  of  bright  weather  there,  its  singular 
darknesses  which  linked  themselves  in  his  mind  to 
certain  engraved  illustrations  in  the  old  big  Bible 
at  home,  the  coolness  of  the  dark,  cavernous  shops  30 
round  the  great  church,  with  its  giddy  winding  stair 
up  to  the  pigeons  and  the  bells  —  a  citadel  of  peace 
in  the  heart  of  the  trouble  —  all  this  acted  on  his 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  51 

childish  fancy,  so  that  ever  afterwards  the  like  as- 
pects and  incidents  never  failed  to  throw  him  into 
a  well-recognised  imaginative  mood,  seeming  ac- 
tually to  have  become  a  part  of  the  texture  of  his 
\5  mind.     Also,  Florian  could  trace  home  to  this  point 
a  pervading  preference  in   himself  for   a   kind   of 
comeliness   and    dignity,    an    urbanity   literally,    in 
modes  of  life,  which  he  connected  with  the  pale 
people  of  towns,  and  which  made  him  susceptible  to 
10  a  kind  of  exquisite  satisfaction  in  the  trimness  and 
well-considered  grace  of  certain  things  and  persons 
\   he  afterwards  met  with,  here  and  there,  in  his  way   ; 
through  the  world. 

So  the  child  of  whom  I  am  writing  Hved  on  there 
IS  quietly;  things  without  thus  ministering  to  him,  as 
I  he  sat  daily  at  the  window  with  the  birdcage  hang- 
*  ing  below  it,  and  his  mother  taught  him  to  read, 
wondering  at  the  ease  with  which  he  learned,  and 
at  the  quickness  of  his  memory.     The  perfume  of 
20  the  little  flowers  of  the  lime-tree  fell  through  the 
air  upon  them  like  rain ;  while  time  seemed  to  mov^  foj^ 
ever  more  slowly  to  the  murmur  of  the  bees  in  it^ 
till  it  almost  stood  still  on  June  afternoons.     How 
insignificant,  at  the  moment,  seem  the  influences  of 
25  the  sensible  things  which  are  tossed  and  fall  and 
lie  about  us,  so,  or  so,  in  the  environment  of  early     .^ 
childhood.     How  indelibly,  as  we  afterwards  dis- 
cover, they  affect  us ;  with  what  capricious  attrac- 
tions  and  associations  they  figure  themselves   on 
30  the  white  paper,  the  smooth  wax,  of  our  ingenuous 
souls,  as  "  with  lead  in  the  rock  for  ever,"  giving 
form  and  feature,  and  as  it  were  assigned  house- 
room    in    our    memory,    to    early    experiences    of 


52  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

feeling  and  thought,  which  abide  with  ns  ever 
afterwards,  thus,  and  not  otherwise.  The  reaHties 
and  passions,  the  rumours  of  the  greater  world  with- 
out, steal  in  upon  us,  each  by  its  own  special  little 
passage-way,  through  the  wall  of  custom  about  us; 5 
and  never  afterwards  quite  detach  themselves  from 
this  or  that  accident,  or  trick,  in  the  mode  of  their 
first  entrance  to  us.  Our  susceptibilities,  the  dis- 
covery of  our  powers,  manifold  experiences  —  our 
various  experiences  of  the  coming  and  going  of  is 
bodily  pain,  for  instance  —  belong  to  this  or  the 
other  well-remembered  place  in  the  material  habi- 
tation —  that  little  white  room  with  the  window 
across  which  the  heavy  blossoms  could  beat  so 
peevishly  in  the  wind,  with  just  that  particular  catch  15 
or  throb,  such  a  sense  of  teasing  in  it,  on  gusty 
mornings;  and  the  early  habitation  thus  gradually 
becomes  a  sort  of  material  shrine  or  sanctuary  of 
sentiment ;  a  system  of  visible  symbolism  inter- 
weaves itself  through  all  our  thoughts  and  passions  ;  20 
and  irresistibly,  little  shapes,  voices,  accidents  —  the 
angle  at  which  the  sun  in  the  morning  fell  on  the 
pillow  —  become  parts  of  the  great  chain  wherewith 
we  are  bound. 

Thus  far,  for  Florian,  what  all  this  had  determined  2  5 
was  a  peculiarly  strong  sense  of  home  —  so  forcible 
a  motive  with  all  of  us  —  prompting  to  us  our  cus- 
tomary love  of  the  earth,  and  the  larger  part  of  our 
fear  of  death,  that  revulsion  we  have  from  it,  as  from 
something  strange,  untried,  unfriendly;  though  life- 33 
long  imprisonment,  they  tell  you,  and  final  banish- 
ment from  home  is  a  thing  bitterer  still ;  the  looking 
forward  to  but  a  short  space,  a  mere  childish  gouter 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  53 

and  dessert  of  it,  before  the  end,  being  so  great  a 
resource  of  effort  to  pilgrims  and  wayfarers,  and 
the  soldier  in  distant  quarters,  and  lending,  in  lack 
of  that,  some  power  of  solace  to  the  thought  of 
5  sleep  in  the  home  churchyard,  at  least  —  dead  cheek 
by  dead  cheek,  and  with  the  rain  soaking  in  upon 
one  from  above. 

So  powerful  is  this  instinct,  and  yet  accidents  like 
those  I  have  been  speaking  of  so  mechanically  de- 

ro  termine  it ;  its  essence  being  indeed  the  early 
familiar,  as  constituting  our  ideal,  or  typical  con- 
ception, of  rest  and  security.  Out  of  so  niclny  pos- 
sible conditions,  just  this  for  you  and  that  for  pie, 
brings  ever  the  unmistakable  realisation  of  the  de- 

15  lightful  chcz  soi;  this  for  the  Englishman,  for  me 
and  you,  with  the  closely-drawn  white  curtain  and 
the  shaded  lamp ;  that,  quite  other,  for  the  wander- 
ing Arab,  who  folds  his  tent  every  morning,  and 
makes  his  sleeping-place  among  haunted  ruins,  or 

20  in  old  tombs. 

With  Florian  then  the  sense  of  home  became  sin- 
gularly intense,  his  good  fortune  being  that  the 
special  character  of  his  home  was  in  itself  so  essen- 
tially home-like.     As  after  many  wanderings  I  have 

25  come  to  fancy  that  some  parts  of  Surrey  and  Kent 
are,  for  Englishmen,  the  true  landscape,  true  home- 
counties,  by  right,  partly,  of  a  certain  earthy  warmth 
in  the  yellow  of  the  sand  below  their  gorse-bushes, 
and  of  a  certain  gray-blue  mist  after  rain,  in  the 

30  hollows  of  the  hills  there,  welcome  to  fatigued  eyes, 
and  never  seen  farther  south ;  so  I  think  that'  the 
sort  of  house  I  have  described,  with  precisely  those 
proportions  of  red-brick  and  green,  and  with  a  just 


54  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

perceptible  monotony  in  the  subdued  order  of  it, 
for  its  distinguishing-  note,  is  for  EngHshmen  at 
least  typically  home-like.  And  so  forTTorian  that 
general  human  instinct  was  reinforced  by  this 
special  home-likeness  in  the  place  his  wanderings 
soul  had  happened  to  light  on,  as,  in  the  second 
degree,  its  body  and  earthly  tabernacleLthe  sense 
of  harmony  between  his  soul  and  its  physical  en- 
vironment became,  for  a  time  at  least,  like  perfectly 
played  music,  and  Iffielife  tS^t^^t^^ingularly  tran-io 
quil  and  filled  with  a  curious  sense  of  self-posses- 
sion. jThe  love  of  security,  of  an  habitually 
undisptfted  standing-ground  or  sleeping-place, came 
to  count  for  much  in  the  generation  and  correcting 
of  his  thoughts,  and  afterwards  as  a  salutary  prin-15 
ciple  of  restraint  in  all  his  wanderings  of  spirit. 
The  wistful  yearning  towards  home,  in  absence 
from  it,  as  the  shadows  of  evening  deepened,  and 
he  followed  in  thought  what  was  doing  there  from 
hour  to  hour,  interpreted  to  him  much  of  a  yearn- 20 
ing  and  regret  he  experienced  afterwards,  towards 
he  knew  not  what,  out  of  strange  ways  of  feeling 
and  thought  in  which,  from  time  to  time,  his  spirit 
found  itself  alone;  and  in  the  tears  shed  in  such 
absences  there  seemed  always  to  be  some  soul-sub- 25 
duing  foretaste  of  what  his  last  tears  might  be. 

nd  the  sense  of  security  could  hardly  have  been 
deeper,  the  quiet  of  the  child's  soul  being  one  with 
the  quiet  of  its  home,  a  place  "  inclosed "  and 
"sealed."  But  upon  this  assured  place,  upon  the 30 
child's  assured  soul  which  resembled  it,  there  came 
floating  in  from  the  larger  world  without,  as  at 
windows  left  ajar  unknowingly,  or  over  the  high 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  55 

garden  walls,  two  streams  of  impressions,  the  sen- 
timents of  beauty  and  pain  —  recognitions  of  the 
visible,  tangible,  audible  loveliness  of  things,  as  a 
very  real  and  somewhat  tyrannous  element  in  them 

5  —  and  of  the  sorrow  of  the  world,  of  grown  people 
and  children  and  animals,  as  a  thing  not  to  be  put 
by  in  them.  From  this  point  he  could  trace  two 
predominant  processes  of  mental  change  in  him  — 
the  growth  of  an  almost  diseased  sensibility  to  the 

ro  spectacle  of  suffering,  and,  parallel  with  this,  the 
rapid  growth  of  a  certain  capacity  of  fascination  by 
bright  colour  and  choice  form  —  the  sweet  curv- 
ings,  for  instance,  of  the  lips  of  those  who  seemed 
to  him  comely  persons,  modulated  in  such  delicate 

15  unison  to  the  things  they  said  or  sang, —  marking 
early  the  activity  in  him  of  a  more  than  customary 
sensuousness,  "  the  lust  of  the  eye,"  as  the  Preacher 
says,   which   might  lead   him,   one   day,   how  far 
rpuld  hr  hnrr  fornrrrrllir  ■j^c-n  inr-iT~rTfi-hr  w 

20  In  music  sometimes  the  two  sorts  of  impressions 
came  together,  and  he  would  weep,  to  the  surprise 
of  older  people.  Tears  of  joy  too  the  child  knew, 
also  to  older  people's  surprise ;  real  tears,  once,  of 
relief  from  long-strung,  childish  expectation,  when 

25  he  found  returned  at  evening,  with  new  roses  in  her 
cheeks,  the  little  sister  who  had  been  to  a  place 
where  there  was  a  wood,  and  brought  back' for  him 
a  treasure  of  fallen  acorns,  and  black  crow's  feath- 
ers, and  his  peace  at  finding  her  again  near  him 

30  mingled  all  night  with  some  intimate  sense  of  the 
distant  forest,  the  rumour  of  its  breezes,  with  the 
glossy  blackbirds  aslant  and  the  branches  lifted  in 
them,  and  of  the  perfect  nicety  of  the  little  cups 


her^^ 

w 


56  SELECTIONS  EROM  PATER 

that  fell.  So  those  two  elementary  apprehensions 
of  the  tenderness  and  of  the  colour  in  things  grew 
apace  in  him,  and  were  seen  by  him  afterwards  to 
send  their  roots  back  into  the  beginnings  of  life. 

J  Let  me  note  first  some  of  the  occasions  of  his  re-  5 
cognition  of  the  element  of  pain  in  things  —  inci- 
dents, now  and  again,  which  seemed  suddenly  to 
awake  in  him  the  whole  force  of  that  sentiment 
which  (jwfhe  has  called  the  Weltschmcrz,  and  in 
which  the  concentrated  sorrow  of  the  world  seemed  ic 
suddenly  to  lie  heavy  upon  him.r  A  book  lay  in 
an  old  book-case,  of  which  he  cared  to  remember 
one  picture  —  a  woman  sitting,  with  hands  bound 
behind  her,  the  dress,  the  cap,  the  hair,  folded  with 
a  simplicity  which  touched  him  strangely,  as  if  not  15 
by  her  own  hands,  but  with  some  ambiguous  care 
at  the  hands  of  others  —  Queen  Marie  Antoinette, 
on  her  ^vay  to  execution — we  all  remember  David's 
drawing,    meant    merely    to    make   her   ridiculous. 
The  face  that  had  been  so  high  had  learned  to  be  20 
mute  and  resistless ;  but  out  of  its  very  resistless- 
ness,  seemed  now  to  call  on  men  to  have  pity,  and 
forbear ;  and  he  took  note  of  that,  as  he  closed  the 
book,  as  a  thing  to  look  at  again,  if  he  should  at 
any  time  find  himself  tempted  to  be  crueljf  Again- 25 
he  would  never  quite  forget  the  appeal  in  the  small 
sister's  *face,  in  the  garden  under  the  lilacs,  terri- 
fied at  a  spider  lighted  on  her  sleeve.     He  could 
trace  back  to  the  look  then  noted  a  certain  mercy 
he  conceived  always  for  people  in  fear,  even  of  lit- 30 
tie  things,  which  seemed  to  make  him,  though  but 
for  a  moment,  capable  of  almost  any  sacrifice  of 
himself.     Impressible,  susceptible  persons,  indeed. 


THE  CHILD  IN   THE  HOUSE  57 

who  had  had  their  sorrows,  Hved  about  him ;  and 
this  sensibiHty  was  due  in  part  to  the  tacit  influ- 
ence of  their  presence,  enforcing  upon  him  habitu- 
ally the  fact  that  there  are  those  who  pass  their 

5  days,  as  a  matter  of  course,  in  a  sort  of  "  going 
quietly.J^  Most  poignantly  of  all  he  could  recall, 
in  unfading  minutest  circumstance,  the  cry  on  the 
stair,  sounding  bitterly  through  the  house,  and 
struck  into  his  soul  for  ever,  of  an  aged  woman, 

10  his  father's  sister,  come  now  to  announce  his  death 
in  distant  India ;  how  it  seemed  to  make  the  aged 
woman  like  a  child  again ;  and,  he  knew  not  why, 
but  this  fancy  was  full  of  pity  to  him.  There  were 
the  little   sorrows  of   the  dumb  animals   too  —  of 

15  the  white  angora,  with  a  dark  tail  like  an  ermine's, 
and  a  face  like  a  flower,  who  fell  into  a  lingering 
sickness,  and  became  quite  delicately  human  in  its 
valetudinarianism,  and  came  to  have  a  hundred  dif- 
ferent expressions  of  voice  —  how  it  grew  worse 

'Ao  and  worse,  till  it  began  to  feel  the  light  too  much 
for  it,  and  at  last,  after  one  wild  morning  of  pain, 
the  little  soul  flickered  away  from  the  body,  quite 
worn  to  death  already,  and  now  but  feebly  re- 
taining it. 

25  So  he  wanted  another  pet;  and  as  there  were 
starlings  about  the  place,  which  could  be  taught  to 
speak,  one  of  them  was  caught,  and  he  meant  to 
treat  it  kindly ;  but  in  the  night  its  young  ones  could 
be  heard   crying  after  it,   and  the  responsive   cry 

30  of  the  mother-bird  towards  them;  and  at  last,  with 
the  first  light,  though  not  till  after  some  debate 
with  himself,  he  went  down  and  opened  the  cage, 
and  saw  a  sharp  bound  of  the  prisoner  up  to  her 


58  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

nestlings ;  and  therewith  came  the  sense  of  remorse, 
— •  that  he  too  was  become  an  accompHce  in  mov- 
ing, to  the  Hmit  of  his  small  power,  the  springs 
and  handles  of  that  great  machine  in  things,  con- 
structed so  ingeniously  to  play  pain-fugues  on  the  5 
delicate  nerve-work  of  living  creatures. 

I  have  remarked  how,  in  the  process  of  our  brain- 
building,  as  the  house  of  thought  in  which  we  live 
gets  itself  together,  like  some  airy  bird's-nest  of 
floating  thistle-down  and  chance  straws,  compact  jo 
at  last,  little  accidents  have  their  consequence ;  and 
thus  it  happened  that,  as  he  walked  one  evening,  a 
garden  gate,  usually  closed,  stood  open ;  and  lo ! 
within,  a  great  red  hawthorn  in  full  flower,  em- 
bossing heavily  the  bleached  and  twisted  trunk  and  15 
branches,  so  aged  that  there  were  but  few  green 
leaves  thereon  —  a  plumage  of  tender,  crimson  fire 
out  of  the  heart  of  the  dry  wood.  The  perfume  of 
the  tree  had  now  and  again  reached  him,  in  the 
currents  of  the  wind,  over  the  wall,  and  he  had  20 
wondered  what  might  be  behind  it,  and  was  now 
allowed  to  fill  his  arms  with  the  flowers  —  flowers 
enough  for  all  the  old  blue-china  pots  along  the 
chimney-piece,  making  fete  in  the  children's  room. 
Was  it  some  periodic  moment  in  the  expansion  25 
of  soul  within  him,  or  mere  trick  of  heat  in  the 
heavily-laden  summer  air?  But  the  beauty  of  the 
thing  struck  home  to  him  feverishly ;  and  in  dreams 
all  night  he  loitered  along  a  magic  roadway  of  crim- 
son flowers,  which  seemed  to  open  ruddily  in  thick,  3a 
fresh  masses  about  his  feet,  and  fill  softly  all  the 
little  hollows  in  the  banks  on  either  side.  Always 
afterwards,  summer  by  summer,  as  the  flowers  came 


THE  CHILD  IN   THE  HOUSE  59 

on,  the  blossom  of  the  red  hawthorn  still  seemed 
to  him  absolutely  the  reddest  of  all  things; 
and  the  goodly  crimson,  still  alive  in  the  works  of 
old  Venetian  masters  or  old  Flemish  tapestries, 
5  called  out  always  from  afar  the  recollection  of  the 
flame  in  those  perishing  little  petals,  as  it  pulsed 
gradually  out  of  them,  kept  long  in  the  drawers  of 
an  old  cabinet.  Also  then,  for  the  first  time,  he 
seemed  to  experience  a  passionateness  in  his  rela- 

lotion  to  fair  outward  objects,  an  inexplicable  ex- 
citement in  their  presence,  which  disturbed  him, 
and  from  which  he  half  longed  to  be  free.  A  touch 
of  regret  or  desire  mingled  all  night  with  the  re- 
membered presence  of  the  red  flowers,  and  their 

15  perfume  in  the  darkness  about  him ;  and  the  long- 
ing for  some  undivined,  entire  possession  of  them 
was  the  beginning  of  a  revelation  to  him,  grow- 
ing ever  clearer,  with  the  coming  of  the  gracious 
summer  guise  of  fields  and  trees   and  persons  in 

20  each  succeeding  year,  of  a  certain,  at  times  seem- 
ingly exclusive,  predominance  in  his  interests,  of 
beautiful  physical  things,  a  kind  of  tyranny  of  the 
senses  over  him. 

In  later  years  he  came  upon  philosophies  which 

25  occupied  him  much  in  the  estimate  of  the  propor- 
tion of  the  sensuous  and  the  ideal  elements  in 
human  knowledge,  the  relative  parts  they  bear  in  it ; 
and,  in  his  intellectual  scheme,  was  led  to  assign 
very  little  to  the  abstract  thought,  and  much  to  its 

30  sensible  vehicle  or  occasion.  Such  metaphysical 
speculation  did  but  reinforce  what  was  instinctive 
in  his  way  of  receiving  the  world,  and  for  him, 
everywhere,  that  sensible  vehicle  or  occasion  be- 


6o  SELECTIONS  EROM  PATER 

came,  perhaps  only  too  surely,  the  necessary  con- 
comitant of  any  perception  of  things,  real  enough 
to  be  of  any  weight  or  reckoning,  in  his  house  of 
thought.  There  were  times  when  he  could  think 
of  the  necessity  he  was  under  of  associating  alls 
thoughts  to  touch  and  sight,  as  a  sympathetic  link 
between  himself  and  actual,  feeling,  living  objects ; 
a  protest  in  favour  of  real  men  and  women  against 
mere  gray,  unreal  abstractions ;  and  he  remembered 
gratefully  how.  the  Christian  religion,  hardly  less  lo 
than  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  translating 
so  much  of  its  spiritual  verity  into  things  that  may 
be  seen,  condescends  in  part  to  sanction  this  in- 
firmity, if  so  it  be,  of  our  human  existence,  wherein 
the  world  of  sense  is  so  much  with  us,  and  wel-15 
comed  this  thought  as  a  kind  of  keeper  and  sentinel 
over  his  soul  therein.  But  certainly,  he  came  more 
and  more  to  be  unable  to  care  for,  or  think  of 
soul  but  as  in  an  actual  body,  or  of  any  world  but 
that  wherein  are  water  and  trees,  and  where  men  20 
and  women  look,  so  or  so,  and  press  actual  hands. 
It  was  the  trick  even  his  pity  learned,  fastening 
those  who  suffered  in  anywise  to  his  affections  by 
a  kind  of  sensible  attachments.  He  would  think 
of  Julian,  fallen  into  incurable  sickness,  as  spoiled  25 
in  the  sweet  blossom  of  his  skin  like  pale  amber, 
and  his  honey-like  hair ;  of  Cecil,  early  dead,  as  cut 
of¥  from  the  lilies,  from  golden  summer  days,  from 
women's  voices ;  and  then  what  comforted  him  a 
little  was  the  thought  of  the  turning  of  the  child's  30 
flesh  to  violets  in  the  turf  above  him.  And  think- 
ing of  the  very  poor,  it  was  not  the  things  which 
most  men  care  most  for  that  he  yearned  to  give 


THE  CHILD  IX   THE  HOUSE  6i 

them ;  but  fairer  roses,  perhaps,  and  power  to  taste 
quite  as  they  will,  at  their  ease  and  not  task-bur- 
dened, a  certain  desirable,  clear  light  in  the  new 
morning,  through  which  sometimes  he  had  noticed 

5  them,  quite  unconscious  of  it,  on  their  way  to  their 
early  toil. 

So  he  yielded  himself  to  these  things,  to  be  played 
upon  by  them  like  a  musical  instrument,  and  began 
to  note  with   deepening  watchfulness,   but  always 

lo  with  some  puzzled,  unutterable  longing  in  his  en- 
joyment, the  phases  of  the  seasons  and  of  the  grow- 
ing or  waning  day,  down  even  to  the  shadov/y 
changes  wrought  on  bare  wall  or  ceiling  —  the  light 
cast  up  from  the  snow,  bringing  out  their  darkest 

15  angles;  the  brown  light  in  the  cloud,  which  meant 
rain ;  that  almost  too  austere  clearness,  in  the  pro- 
tracted light  of  the  lengthening  day,  before  warm 
weather  began,  as  if  it  lingered  but  to  make  a 
severer   workday,   with    the    school-books    opened 

20  earlier  and  later ;  that  beam  of  June  sunshine,  at 
last,  as  he  lay  awake  before  the  time,  a  way  of  gold- 
dust  across  the  darkness;  all  the  humming,  the 
freshness,  the  perfume  of  the  garden  seemed  to  lie 
upon  it  —  and  coming  in  one  afternoon  in  Septem- 

25.  ber,  along  the  red  gravel  walk,  to  look  for  a  basket 
of  yellow  crab-apples  left  in  the  cool,  old  parlour, 
he  remembered  it  the  more,  and  how  the  colours 
struck  upon  him,  because  a  wasp  on  one  bitten 
apple  stung  him,  and  he  felt  the  passion  of  sudden, 

30  severe  pain.  For  this  too  brought  its  carious  re- 
flexions; and,  m  relief  from  it,  he  would  wonder 
over  it  —  how  it  had  then  been  with  him  —  puzzled 
at  the  depth  of  the  charm  or  spell  over  him,  which 


62  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

lay,  for  a  little  while  at  least,  in  the  mere  absence 
of  pain ;  once,  especially,  when  an  older  boy  taught 
him  to  make  flowers  of  sealing-wax,  and  he  had 
burnt  his  hand  badly  at  the  lighted  taper,  and  been 
unable  to  sleep.  He  remembered  that  also  after- 5 
wards,  as  a  sort  of  typical  thing  —  a  white  vision 
of  heat  about  him,  clinging  closely,  through  the 
languid  scent  of  the  ointments  put  upon  the  place 
to  make  it  well. 

Also,  as  he  felt  this  pressure  upon  him  of  the  10 
sensible   world,    then,    as    often    afterwards,    there 
would   come   another  sort   of   curious   questioning 
how  the  last  impressions  of  eye  and  ear  might  hap- 
pen to  him,  how  they  would  find  him  —  the  scent 
of  the  last  flower,  the  soft  yellowness   of  the  last  15 
morning,  the  last  recognition  of  some  object  of  af- 
fection, hand  or  voice ;  it  could  not  be  but  that  the 
latest  look  of  the  eyes,  before  their  final  closing, 
would  be  strangely  vivid ;  one  would  go  with  the 
hot  tears,  the  cry,  the  touch  of  the  wistful  bystander,  20 
impressed  how  deeply  on  one !  or  would  it  be,  per- 
haps, a  mere  frail  retiring  of  all  things,  great  or 
little,  away  from  one,  into  a  level  distance? 

For  with  this  desire  of  physical  beaiity  mingled 
itself  early  the  fear  of  death  —  the  fear  of  death  in- 25 
tensified  by  the  desire  of  beauty.  Hitherto  he  had 
never  gazed  upon  dead  faces,  as  sometimes,  after- 
wards, at  the  Morgue  in  Paris,  or  in  that  fair  ceme- 
tery at  Munich,  where  all  the  dead  must  go  and 
lie  in  state  before  burial,  behind  glass  windows,  3a 
among  the  flowers  and  incense  and  holy  candles  — 
the  aged  clergy  with  their  sacred  ornaments,  the 
young   men   in   their   dancing-shoes   and   spotless 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  6z 

white  linen  —  after  which  visits,  those  waxen,  re- 
sistless faces  would  always  live  with  him  for  many 
days,  making  the  broadest  sunshine  sickly.  The 
child  had  heard  indeed  of  the  death  of  his  father, 
5  and  how,  in  the  Indian  station,  a  I'ever  had  taken 
him,  so  that  though  not  in  action  he  had  yet  died 
as  a  soldier;  and  hearing  of  the  ''resurrection  of 
the  just,"  he  could  think  of  him  as  still  abroad  in 
the  world,  somehow,  for  his  protection  —  a  grand, 

lo  though  perhaps  rather  terrible  figure,  in  beautiful 
soldier's  things,  like  the  figure  in  the  picture  of 
Joshua's  Vision  in  the  Bible  —  and  of  that,  round 
which  the  mourners  moved  so  softly,  and  after- 
wards with  such  solemn  singing,  as  but  a  worn- 

15  out  garment  left  at  a  deserted  lodging.  So  it  was, 
until  on  a  summer  day  he  walked  with  his  mother 
through  a  fair  churchyard.  In  a  bright  dress  he 
rambled  among  the  graves,  in  the  gay  weather,  and 
so  came,  in  one  corner,  upon  an  open  grave  for  a 

20  child  —  a  dark  space  on  the  brilliant  grass  —  the 
black  mould  lying  heaped  up  round  it,  weighing 
down  the  little  jewelled  branches  of  the  dwarf  rose- 
bushes in  flower.  And  therewith  came,  full-grown, 
never  wholly  to  leave  him,  with  the  certainty  that 

25  even  children  do  sometimes  die,  the  physical  hor- 
ror of  death,  with  its  wholly  selfish  recoil  from  the 
association  of  lower  forms  of  life,  and  the  suffocat- 
ing weight  above.  No  benign,  grave  figure  in 
beautiful  soldier's  things  any  longer  abroad  in  the 

30  world  for  his  protection !  only  a  few  poor,  piteous 
bones;  and  above  them,  possibly,  a  certain  sort  of 
figure  he  hoped  not  to  see.  For  sitting  one  day  in 
the  garden  below  an  open  window,  he  heard  people 


64  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

talking,  and  could  not  but  listen,  how,  in  a  sleepless 
hour,  a  sick  woman  had  seen  one  of  the  dead  sit- 
ting beside  her,  come  to  call  her  hence ;  and  from 
the  broken  talk  evolved  with  much '•■4:learness  the 
notion  that  not  all  those  dead  people  had  really  5 
departed  to  the  churchyard,  nor  were*  quite  so  mo- 
tionless as  they  looked,  but  led  a  secret, 'half-fugitive 
life  in  their  old  homes,  quite  free  by  night,  though 
sometimes  visible  in  the  day,  dodging  from  room 
to  room,  with  no  great  goodwill  towards  those  who  10 
shared  the  place  with  them.  All  night  the  figure 
sat  beside  him  in  the  reveries  of  his  broken  sleep, 
and  was  not  quite  gone  in  the  morning  —  an  odd, 
irreconcileable  new  member  of  the  household,  mak- 
ing the  sweet  familiar  chambers  unfriendly  and  sus-15 
pect  by  its  uncertain  presence.  He  could  have 
hated  the  dead  he  had  pitied  so,  for  being  thus. 
Afterwards  he  came  to  think  of  those  poor,  home- 
returning  ghosts,  which  all  men  haA^e  fancied  to 
themselves  —  the  rcvcnants  —  pathetically,  as  cry-  20 
ing,  or  beating  with  vain  hands  at  the  doors,  as 
the  wind  came,  their  cries  distinguishable  in  it  as 
a  wilder  inner  note.  But,  always  making  death 
more  unfamiliar  still,  that  old  experience  would 
ever,  from  time  to  time,  return  to  him ;  even  in  the  25 
living  he  sometimes  caught  its  likeness ;  at  any  tim.e 
or  place,  in  a  moment,  the  faint  atmosphere  of  the 
chamber  of  death  would  be  breathed  around  him, 
and  the  image  with  the  bound  chin,  the  quaint 
smile,  the  straight,  stiff  feet,  shed  itself  across  the  3a 
air  upon  the  bright  carpet,  amid  the  gayest  com- 
pany, or  happiest  communing  with  himself. 

To  most  children   the   sombre   questionings   to 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  65 

which  impressions  like  these  attach  themselves,  if 
they  come  at  all,  are  actually  suggested  by  religious 
books,  which  therefore  they  often  regard  with  much 
secret  distaste,  and  dismiss,  as  far  as  possible,  from 
5  their  habitual  thoughts  as  a  too  depressing  ele- 
ment in  life.  To  Florian  such  impressions,  these 
misgivings  as  to  the  ultimate  tendency  of  the  years, 
of  the  relationship  between  life  and  death,  had  been 
suggested  spontaneously  in  the  natural  course  of 

10  his  mental  growth  by  a  strong  innate  sense  for  the 
soberer  tones  in  things,  further  strengthened  by 
actual  circumstances ;  and  religious  sentiment,  that 
system  of  biblical  ideas  in  which  he  had  been 
brought  up,  presented  itself  to  him  as  a  thing  that 

15  might  soften  and  dignify,  and  light  up  as  with  a 
"  lively  hope,"  a  melancholy  already  deeply  settled 
in  him.  So  he  yielded  himself  easily  to  religious 
impressions,  and  with  a  kind  of  mystical  appetite 
for  sacred  things ;  the  more  as  they  came  to  him 

20  through  a  saintly  person  who  loved  him  tenderly, 
and  believed  that  this  early  pre-occupation  with 
them  already  marked  the  child  out  for  a  saint.  He 
began  to  love,  for  their  own  sakes,  church  lights, 
holy  days,  all  that  belonged  to  the  comely  order  of 

25  the  sanctuary,  the  secrets  of  its  white  linen,  and  holy 
vessels,  and  fonts  of  pure  water;  and  its  hieratic 
purity  and  simplicity  became  the  type  of  some- 
thing he  desired  always  to  have  about  him  in  ac- 
tual life.     He  pored  over  the  pictures  in  religious 

30  books,  and  knew  by  heart  the  exact  mode  in  which 

the    wrestling    angel    grasped    Jacob,  how    Jacob 

looked  in  his  mysterious  sleep,  how  the  bells  and 

pomegranates  were  attached  to  the  hem  of  Aaron's 

5 


66  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

vestment,  sounding  sweetly  as  he  glided  over  the 
turf  of  the  holy  place.  His  way  of  conceiving  re- 
ligion came  then  to  be  in  effect  what  it  ever  after- 
wards remained  —  a  sacred  history  indeed,  but  still 
more  a  sacred  ideal,  a  transcendent  version  or  rep- 5 
resentation,  under  intenser  and  more  expressive 
light  and  shade,  of  human  life  and  its  familiar  or 
exceptional  incidents,  birth,  death,  m.arriage,  youth, 
age,  tears,  joy,  rest,  sleep,  waking  —  a  mirror, 
towards  which  men  might  turn  away  their  eyes  10 
from  vanity  and  dullness,  and  see  themselves 
therein  as  angels,  with  their  daily  meat  and  drink, 
even,  become  a  kind  of  sacred  transaction  —  a  com- 
plementary strain  or  burden,  applied  to  our  every- 
day existence,  whereby  the  stray  snatches  of  music  15 
in  it  re-set  themselves,  and  fall  into  the  scheme  of 
some  higher  and  more  consistent  harmony.  A 
place  adumbrated  itself  in  his  thoughts,  wherein 
those  sacred  personalities,  which  are  at  once  the 
reflex  and  the  pattern  of  our  nobler  phases  of  life,  2a 
housed  themselves ;  and  this  region  in  his  intel- 
lectual scheme  all  subsequent  experience  did  but 
tend  still  further  to  realise  and  define.  Some  ideal, 
hieratic  persons  he  would  always  need  to  occupy 
it  and  keep  a  warmth  there.  And  he  could  hardly  25 
understand  those  who  felt  no  such  need  at  all,  find- 
ing themselves  quite  happy  without  such  heavenly 
companionship,  and  sacred  double  of  their  life,  be- 
side them. 

Thus  a  constant  substitution  of  the  typical  for  3a 
the   actual    took   place   in   his   thoughts.      Angels 
might  be  met  by  the  way,  under  English  elm  or 
beach-tree;  mere  messengers  seemed  like  angels, 


THE  CHILD  IN  THE  HOUSE  67 

bound  on  celestial  errands ;  a  deep  niysticity 
brooded  over  real  meetings  and  partings ;  mar- 
riages were  made  in  heaven ;  and  deaths  also,  with 
hands  of  angels  thereupon,  to  bear  soul  and  body 
5  quietly  asunder,  each  to  its  appointed  rest.  All 
the  acts  and  accidents  of  daily  life  borrowed  a  sa- 
cred colour  and  significance ;  the  very  colours  of 
things  became  themselves  weighty  with  meanings 
like  the  sacred  stuffs  of  Moses'  tabernacle,  full  of 

10  penitence  or  peace.  Sentiment,  congruous  in  the 
first  instance  only  with  those  divine  transactions, 
the  deep,  effusive  unction  of  the  House  of  Bethany, 
was  assumed  as  the  due  attitude  for  the  reception 
of    our    every-day    existence ;    and    for    a   time   he 

15  walked  through  the  world  in  a  sustained,  not  un- 
pleasurable  awe,  generated  by  the  habitual  recog- 
nition, beside  every  circumstance  and  event  of  life, 
of  its  celestial  correspondent. 

Sensibility  —  the   desire   of  physical   beauty  —  a 

20  strange  biblical  awe,  which  made  any  reference  to 
the  unseen  act  on  him  like  solemn  music  —  these 
qualities  the  child  took  away  with  him,  when,  at 
about  the  age  of  twelve  years,  he  left  the 
old    house,    and    was    taken    to    live    in    another 

»5  place.  He  had  never  left  home  before,  and,  an- 
ticipating much  from  this  change,  had  long 
dreamed  over  it,  jealously  counting  the  days  till 
the  time  fixed  for  departure  should  come ;  had 
been     a    little    careless     about     others    even,     in 

30  his  strong  desire  for  it  —  when  Lewis  fell  sick. 
for  instance,  and  they  must  wait  still  two  days 
longer.  At  last  the  morning  came,  very  fine ;  and 
all  thinfi:s  —  the  very  pavement  with  its  dust,  at  the 


68  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

roadside  —  seemed  to  have  a  white,  pearl-Hke  lustre 
in  them.  They  were  to  travel  by  a  favourite  road 
on  which  he  had  often  walked  a  certain  distance, 
and  on  one  of  those  two  prisoner  days,  when  Lewis 
was  sick,  had  walked  farther  than  ever  before,  ins 
his  great  desire  to  reach  the  new  place.  They  had 
started  and  gone  a  little  way  when  a  pet  bird  was 
found  to  have  been  left  behind,  and  must  even  now 
—  so  it  presented  itself  to  him  —  have  already  all 
the  appealing  fierceness  and  wild  self-pity  at  heart  lo 
of  one  left  by  others  to  perish  of  hunger  in  a  closed 
house;  and  he  returned  to  fetch  it,  himself  in  hardly 
less  stormy  distress.  But  as  he  passed  in  search 
of  it  from  room  to  room,  lying  so  pale,  with  a  look 
of  meekness  in  their  denudation,  and  at  last  through  15 
that  little,  stripped  white  room,  the  aspect  of  the 
place  touched  him  like  the  face  of  one  dead;  and 
1  clinging  back  towards  it  came  over  him,  so  in- 
i-ense  that  he  knew  it  would  last  long,  and  spoiling 
all  his  pleasure  in  the  realisation  of  a  thing  so  20 
eagerly  anticipated.  And  so,  with  the  bird  found, 
but  himself  in  an  agony  of  home-sickness,  thus  ca- 
priciously sprung  up  within  him,  he  was  driven 
quickly  away,  far  into  the  rural  distance,  so  fondly 
speculated  on,  of  that  favourite  country-road.  25 

(From  Macmillan's  Magazine,  August,  1878.    Miscellaneous 
Studies    1895.) 


Bupbutsm 

So  the  famous  story  composed  itself  in  the  mem- 
ory of  Marius,  with  an  expression  changed  in  some 
ways  from  the  original  and  on  the  whole  graver. 
The  petulant,  boyish  Cupid  of  Apuleius  was  become 
5  more  like  that  ''  Lord,  of  terrible  aspect,"  who  stood 
at  Dante's  bedside  and  wept,  or  had  at  least  grown 
to  the  manly  earnestness  of  the  Eros  of  Praxiteles. 
Set  in  relief  amid  the  coarser  matter  of  the  book, 
this  episode  of  Cupid  and  Psyche  served  to  com- 

lobine  many  lines  of  meditation,  already  familiar  to 
Marius,  into  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  imaginative  love, 
centered  upon  a  type  of  beauty  entirely  flawless 
and  clean  —  an  ideal  Avhich  never  wholly  faded  from 
his  tho lights,  though  he  valued  it  at  various  times 

(S  in  different  degrees.  The  human  body  in  its  beauty, 
as  the  highest  potency  of  all  the  beauty  of  material 
objects,  seemed  to  him  just  then  to  be  matter  no 
long^er,  but,  having:  taken  celestial  fire,  to  assert  it- 
self  as  indeed  the  true,  though  visible,  soul  or  spirit 

ao  in  things.  In  contrast  with  that  ideal,  in  all  the 
pure  brilliancy,  and  as  it  were  in  the  happy  light, 

,  of  youth  and  morning  and  the  springtide,  men's 
actual  loves,  with  which  at  many  points  the  book 
brings  one  into  close  contact,  might  appear  to  him, 

25  like  the  general  tenor  of  their  lives,  to  be  somewhat 

mean  and  sordid.     The  hiddcnncss  of  perfect  things  : 

a   shrinking  mysticism,   a   sentiment   of   diffidence 

like  that  expressed  in  Psvche's  so  tremulous  hope 

69 


70  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

concerning  the  child  to  be  born  of  the  husband  she 
has  never  yet  seen  —  ''  in  the  face  of  this  Httle  child, 
at  the  least,  shall  I  apprehend  thine "  —  in  hoc 
saltern  parvulo  cognoscam  faciein  ttiam:  the  fatality 
which  seems  to  haunt  any  signal  beauty,  whether  5 
moral  or  physical,  as  if  it  were  in  itself  somethihg 
illicit  and  isolating:  the  suspicion  and  hatred  it  so 
often  excites  in  the  vulgar :  —  these  were  some  of 
the  impressions,  forming,  as  they  do,  a  constant 
tradition  of  somewhat  cynical  pagan  experience,  10 
from  Medusa  and  Helen  downwards,  which  the  old 
story  enforced  on  him.  A  book,  like  a  person,  has 
its  fortunes  with  one;  is  lucky  or  unlucky  in  the 
precise  moment  of  its  falling  in  our  way,  and  often 
by  some  happy  accident  counts  with  us  for  some-  15 
thing  more  than  its  independent  value.  The  Meta- 
morphoses of  Apuleius,  coming  to  Marius  just  then, 
figured  for  him  as  indeed  The  Golden  Book:  he  felt 
a  sort  of  personal  gratitude  to  its  writer,  and  saw 
in  it  doubtless  far  more  than  was  really  there  for  20 
any  other  reader.  It  occupied  always  a  peculiar 
place  in  his  remembrance,  never  quite  losing  its 
power  in  frequent  return  to  it  for  the  revival  of 
that  first  glowing  impression. 

Its  effect  upon  the  elder  youth  was  a  more  prac-  25 
tical  one  :  it  stimulated  the  literary  ambition,  already 
so  strong  a  motive  with  him,  by  a  signal  example 
of  success,  and  made  him  more  than  ever  an  ardent, 
indefatigable  student  of  words,  of  the  means  or 
instrument  of  the  literary  art.  The  secrets  of  utter-  30 
ance,  of  expression  itself,  of  that  through  which 
alone  any  intellectual  or  spiritual  power  within  one 
can  actually  take  effect  upon  others,  to  over-awe 


EUPHUISM  n 

or  charm  them  to  one's  side,  presented  themselves 
to  this  ambitious  lad  in  immediate  connexion  with 
that  desire  for  predominance,  for  the  satisfaction  of 
which  another  might  have  relied  on  the  acquisition 
5  and  display  of  brilliant  military  qualities.  In  him, 
a  fine  instinctive  sentiment  of  the  exact  value  and 
power  of  words  was  connate  with  the  eager  long- 
ing for  sway  over  his  fellows.  He  saw  himself 
already  a  gallant  and  effective  leader,  innovating  or 

lo  conservative  as  occasion  might  require,  in  the  re- 
habilitation of  the  mother  tongue,  then  fallen  so 
tarnished  and  languid ;  yet  the  sole  object,  as  he 
mused  within  himself,  of  the  only  sort  of  patriotic 
feeling  proper,  or  possible,  for  one  born  of  slaves. 

15  The  popular  speech  was  gradually  departing  from 
the  form  and  rule  of  literary  language,  a  language 
always  and  increasingly  artificial.  While  the 
learned  dialect  was  yearly  becoming  more  and  more 
barbarously  pedantic,  the  colloquial  idiom,  on  the 

20  other  hand,  offered  a  thousand  chance-tost  gems 
of  racy  or  picturesque  expression,  rejected  or  at 
least  ungathered  by  what  claimed  to  be  classical 
Latin.  The  time  was  coming  when  neither  the 
pedants   nor   the  people  would   really   understand 

25  Cicero ;  though  there  were  some  indeed,  like  this 
new  writer,  Apuleius,  who,  departing  from  the  cus- 
tom of  writing  in  Greek,  which  had  been  a  fashion- 
able affectation  among  the  sprightlier  wits  since  the 
days  of  Hadrian,  had  written  in  the  vernacular. 

30  The  literary  programme  which  Flavian  had 
already  designed  for  himself  would  be  a  work,  then, 
partly  conservative  or  reactionary,  in  its  dealing 
with  the  instrument  of  the  literary  art ;  partly  popu- 


72  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

lar  and  revolutionary,  asserting,  so  to  term  them, 
the  rights  of  the  proletariate  of  speech.  More  than 
fifty  years  before,  the  younger  PHny,  himself  an 
efTfective  witness  for  the  delicate  power  of  the  Latin 
tongue,  had  said,  "  I  am  one  of  those  who  admire  5 
the  ancients,  yet  I  do  not,  like  some  others,  under- 
rate certain  instances  of  genius  which  our  own  times 
afford.  For  it  is  not  true  that  nature,  as  if  weary 
jind  effete,  no  longer  produces  what  is  admirable." 
And  he,  Flavian,  would  prove  himself  the  true  mas-  iq 
ter  of  the  opportunity  thus  indicated.  In  his  eager- 
ness for  a  not  too  distant  fame,  he  dreamed  over 
all  that,  as  the  young  Caesar  may  have  dreamed 
of  campaigns.  Others  might  brutalise  or  neglect 
the  native  speech,  that  true  "  open  field  "  for  charm  15 
and  sway  over  men.  He  would  make  of  it  a  se- 
rious study,  weighing  the  precise  power  of  every 
phrase  and  word,  as  though  it  were  precious  metal, 
disentangling  the  later  associations  and  going  back 
to  the  original  and  native  sense  of  each, —  restor-2a 
ing  to  full  significance  all  its  wealth  of  latent  figura- 
tive expression,  reviving  or  replacing  its  outworn 
or  tarnished  images.  Latin  literature  and  the  Latin 
tongue  were  dying  of  routine  and  languor;  and 
what  was  necessary,  first  of  all,  was  to  re-establish  25 
the  natural  and  direct  relationship  between  thought 
and  expression,  between  the  sensation  and  the  term, 
and  restore  to  words  their  primitive  power. 

For  words,  after  all,  words  manipulated  with  all 
his  delicate  force,  were  to  be  the  apparatus  of  a  war  30 
for  himself.     To  be  forcibly  impressed,  in  the  first 
place;  and  in  the  next,  to  find  the  means  of  mak- 
ing visible  to  others  that  which  was  vividly  appa- 


EUPHUISM  73 

rent,  delightful,  of  lively  interest  to  himself,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  that  was  but  middling,  tame,  or  only 
half-true  even  to  him  —  this  scrupulousness  of  lite- 
rary art  actually  awoke  in  Flavian,  for  the  first 
5  time,  a  sort  of  chivalrous  conscience.  What  care 
for  style  !  what  patience  of  execution  !  what  research 
for  the  significant  tones  of  ancient  idiom  —  sonan- 
tia  verba  et  antiqua!  What  stately  and  regular 
word-building  —  gravis  et  decora  constructio!       He 

lo  felt  the  whole  meaning  of  the  sceptical  Pliny's 
somewhat  melancholy  advice  to  one  of  his  friends, 
that  he  should  seek  in  literature  deliverance  from 
mortality  —  ^lt  studiis  se  literarum  a  mortalitate  vin- 
dicet.     And  there  was  everything  in  the  nature  and 

'!5  the  training  of  Marius  to  make  him  a  full  partici- 
pator in  the  hopes  of  such  a  new  literary  school, 
with  Flavian  for  its  leader.  In  the  refinements  of 
that  curious  spirit,  in  its  horror  of  profanities,  its 
fastidious  sense  of  a  correctness  in  external  form, 

io  there  was  something  which  ministered  to  the  old 
ritual  interest,  still  surviving  in  him ;  as  if  here  in- 
deed were  involved  a  kind  of  sacred  service  to  the 
mother-tongue. 

Here,  then,  v/as  the  theory  of  Euphuism,  as  mani- 

25  fested  in  every  age  in  which  the  literary  conscience 
has  been  awakened  to  forgotten  duties  towards  lan- 
guage, towards  the  instrument  of  expression  :  in  fact 
it  does  but  modify  a  little  the  principles  of  all  ef- 
fective expression  at  all  times.     'Tis  art's  function 

30  to  conceal  itself :  ars  est  celare  artein. —  is  a  saying, 
which,  exaggerated  by  inexact  quotation,  has  per- 
haps been  oftenest  and  most  confidently  quoted  by 
those  who  have  had  little  literary  or  other  art  to 


74  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

conceal ;  and  from  the  very  beginning  of  profes- 
sional literature,  the  "  labour  of  the  file  "  —  a  la- 
bour in  the  case  of  Plato,  for  instance,  or  Virgil, 
like  that  of  the  oldest  of  goldsmiths  as  described  by 
Apuleius,  enriching  the  work  by  far  more  than  the  5 
weight  of  precious  metal  it  removed  —  has  always 
had  its  function.  Sometimes,  doubtless,  as  in  later 
examples  of  it,  this  Roman  Euphuism,  determined 
at  any  cost  to  attain  beauty  in  writing  —  ^9  xdUo(^ 
Ypdfziv  —  might  lapse  into  its  characteristic  fop- 10 
peries  or  mannerisms,  into  the  "  defects  of  its  quali- 
ties," in  truth,  not  wholly  unpleasing  perhaps,  or 
at  least  excusable,  when  looked  at  as  but  the  toys 
(so  Cicero  calls  them)  the  strictly  congenial  and 
appropriate  toys,  of  an  assiduously  cultivated  age,  15 
which  could  not  help  being  polite,  critical,  self-con- 
scious. The  mere  love  of  novelty  also  had,  of 
course,  its  part  there :  as  with  the  Euphuism  of  the 
Elizabethan  age,  and  of  the  modern  French  roman- 
ticists, its  neologies  were  the  ground  of  one  of  the  20 
favourite  charges  against  it;  though  indeed,  as  re- 
gards these  tricks  of  taste  also,  there  is  nothing 
new,  but  a  quaint  family  likeness  rather,  between 
the  Euphuists  of  successive  ages.  Here,  as  else- 
where, the  power  of  "  fashion,"  as  it  is  called,  is  but  25 
one  minor  form,  slight  enough,  it  may  be,  yet  dis- 
tinctly symptomatic,  of  that  deeper  yearning  of 
human  nature  towards  ideal  perfection,  which  is  a 
continuous  force  in  it;  and  since  in  this  direction 
too  human  nature  is  limited,  such  fashions  must  30 
necessarily  reproduce  themselves.  Among  other 
resemblances  to  later  growths  of  Euphuism,  its  ar- 
chaisms on  the  one  hand,  and  its  neologies  on  the 


EUPHUISM  7S 

Other,  the  Euphuism  of  the  days  of  Marcus  Au- 
reHus  had,  in  the  composition  of  verse,  its  fancy 
for  the  refrain.  It  was  a  snatch  from  a  popular 
chorus,  something  he  had  heard  sounding  all  over 

5  the  town  of  Pisa  one  April  night,  one  of  the  first 
bland  and  summer-like  nights  of  the  year,  that 
Flavian  had  chosen  for  the  refrain  of  a  poem  he 
was  then  pondering  —  the  Pervigilium  Veneris  — 
the  vigil,  or  *'  nocturn,"  of  Venus. 

lo  Certain  elderly  counsellors,  filling  what  may  be 
thought  a  constant  part  in  the  little  tragi-comedy 
which  literature  and  its  votaries  are  playing  in  all 
ages,  would  ask,  suspecting  some  afifectation  or 
unreality  in  that  minute  culture  of  form:  —  Cannot 

15  those  who  have  a  thing  to  say,  say  it  directly  ? 
Why  not  be  simple  and  broad,  like  the  old  writers 
of  Greece  ?  And  this  challenge  had  at  least  the  ef- 
fect of  setting  his  thoughts  at  work  on  the  intellec- 
tual situation  as  it  lay  beween  the  children  of  the 

20  present  and  those  earliest  masters.  Certainly,  the 
most  wonderful,  the  unique,  point,  about  the  Greek 
genius,  in  literature  as  in  everything  else,  was  the 
entire  absence  of  imitation  in  its  productions.  How 
had  the  burden  of  precedent,  laid  upon  every  artist, 

25  increased  since  then  !  It  was  all  around  one  :  — 
that  "smoothly  built  world  of  old  classical  taste,  an 
accomplished  fact,  with  overwhelming  authority  on 
every  detail  of  the  conduct  of  one's  work.  With 
no  fardel  on  its  own  back,  yet  so  imperious  towards 

30  those  who  came  labouring  after  it,  Hellas,  in  its 
early  freshness,  looked  as  distant  from  him  even 
then  as  it  does  from  ourselves.  There  might  seem 
to  be  no  place  left   for   novelty  or  originality,— 


76  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

place  only  for  a  patient,  an  infinite,  faultlessness. 
On   this   question   too  Flavian  passed   through   a 
world  of  curious  art-casuistries,  of  self-tormenting, 
at  the  threshold  of  his  work.     Was  poetic  beauty 
a  thing  ever  one  and  the  same,  a  type  absolute;  or,  5 
changing  always  with  the  soul  of  time  itself,  did  it 
depend  upon  the  taste,  the  peculiar  trick  of  appre- 
hension, the  fashion,  as  we  say,  of  each  successive 
ige  ?     Might  one  recover  that  old,  earlier  sense  of 
it,  that  earlier  manner,  in  a  masterly  effort  to  recall  10 
all  the  complexities  of  the  life,  moral  and  intellec- 
tual, of  the  earlier  age  to  which  it  had  belonged? 
Had  there  been  really  bad  ages  in  art  or  literature? 
Were   all  ages,    even   those   earliest,   adventurous, 
matutinal  days,   in  themselves  equally  poetical  or  15 
unpoetical ;   and    poetry,    the   literary  beauty,    the 
poetic   ideal,   always   but   a   borrowed   light   upon 
men's  actual  life? 
Homer  had  said  — 

01  d^  ore  di]  hi±ho<s  TLoXo[it'/6io<i  ivro?  uovro, 
*I(TTia  /xkv  ffrsiXavro^  diffav  <5'  h  >fii  fieXav^rj  .   .   . 
^Ex  6e  xai  ai)ro\  ^avMr>  l7z\  priytivH  daXd(T<yrj<;. 

And  how  poetic  the  simple  incident  seemed,  told  2a 
just  thus !  Homer  was  always  telling  things  after 
this  manner.  And  one  might  think  there  had  •been 
no  effort  in  it :  that  here  was  but  the  almost  me- 
chanical transcript  of  a  time,  naturally,  intrinsically, 
poetic,  a  time  in  which  one  could  hardly  have  25 
spoken  at  all  without  ideal  effect,  or  the  sailors 
pulled  down  their  boat  without  making  a  picture  in 
"  the  great  style,"  against  a  sky  charged  with  mar- 
vels.    Must  not  the  mere  prose  of  an  age,  itself 


EUPHUISM  77 

thus  ideal,  have  counted  for  more  than  half  of 
Homer's  poetry?  Or  might  the  closer  student  dis- 
cover even  here,  even  in  Homer,  the  really  media- 
torial function  of  the  poet,  as  between  the  reader 
5  and  the  actual  matter  of  his  experience ;  the  poet 
waiting,  so  to  speak,  in  an  age  which  had  felt  itself 
trite  and  common-place  enough,  on  his  opportunity 
for  the  touch  of  ''  golden  alchemy,"  or  at  least  for 
the  pleasantly-lighted   side  of   things   themselves? 

lo  Might  not  another,  in  one's  own  prosaic  and 
used-up  time,  so  uneventful  as  it  had  been  through 
the  long  reign  of  these  quiet  Antonines,  in  Tike  man- 
ner, discover  his  ideal,  by  a  due  waiting  upon  it? 
Would  not  a  future  generation,  looking  back  upon 

.15  this,  under  the  power  of  the  enchanted-distance  fal- 
lacy, find  it  ideal  to  view,  in  contrast  with  its  own 
languor  —  the  languor  that  for  some  reason  (con- 
cerning which  Augustine  will  one  day  have  his 
view)  seemed  to  haunt  men  always?     Had  Homer, 

i:o  even,  appeared  unreal  and  affected  in  his  poetic 
flight,  to  some  of  the  people  of  his  own  age,  as 
seemed  to  happen  with  every  new  literature  in  turn? 
In  any  case,  the  intellectual  conditions  of  early 
Greece    had    been  —  how    different    from    these ! 

i'5  And  a  true  literary  tact  would  accept  that  difference 
in  forming  the  primary  conception  of  the  literary 
function  at  a  later  time.  Perhaps  the  utmost  one 
could  get  by  conscious  effort,  in  the  way  of  a  reac- 
tion or  return  to  the  conditions  of  an  earlier  and 

30  fresher  age,  would  be  but  novitas,  artificial  artless- 
ness,  naivete;  and  this  quality  too  might  have  its 
measure  of  euphuistic  charm,  direct  and  sensible 
enough,  though  it  must  count,  in  comparison  with 


78  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

that  genuine  early  Greek  newness  at  the  beginning, 
not  as  the  freshness  of  the  open  fields,  but  only  of 
a  bunch  of  field-flowers  in  a  heated  room. 

There  was,  meantime,  all  this :  —  on  one  side,  the 
old  pagan  culture,  for  us  but  a  fragment,  for  him  5 
an    accomplished    yet    present    fact,    still    a    living 
united,  organic  whole,  in  the  entirety  of  its  art,  its 
thought,  its  religions,  its  sagacious  forms  of  polity, 
that   so  weighty   authority   it  exercised   on   every 
point,   being   in   reality    only   the   measure   of   its  10 
charm  for  every  one :  on  the  other  side,  the  actual 
world  in  all  its  eager  self-assertion,  with  Flavian 
himself,  in  his  boundless  animation,  there,  at  the 
centre  of  the  situation.     From  the  natural  defects, 
from  the  pettiness,  of  his  euphuism,  his  assiduous  15 
cultivation  of  manner,  he  was  saved  by  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  had  a  matter  to  present,  very 
real,  at  least  to  him.     That  preoccupation  of  the 
'dilettante   with   what   might  seem  mere   details   of 
form,  after  all,  did  but  serve  the  purpose  of  bring-  20 
ing  to  the  surface,  sincerely  and  in  their  integrity, 
certain  strong  personal  intuitions,  a  certain  vision 
or  apprehension  of  things  as  really  being,  with  im- 
portant results,  thus,  rather  than  thus, —  intuitions 
which   the    artistic   or   literary   faculty   was   called  25 
upon  to  follow,  with  the  exactness  of  wax  or  clay, 
clothing  the  model  within.     Flavian  too,  with  his 
fine  clear  mastery  of  the  practically  efYective,  had 
early  laid  hold  of  the  principle,  as  axiomatic  in  lit- 
erature: that  to  know  when  one's  self  is  interested,  30 
is  the  first  condition  of  interesting  other  people. 
It  was   a   principle,   the    forcible   apprehension  of 
which  made  him  jealous  and  fastidious  in  the  se- 


euf::uism  79 

lection  of  his  intellectual  food ;  often  listless  while 
others  read  or  gazed  diligently;  never  pretending 
to  be  moved  out  of  mere  complaisance  to  other 
people's  emotions :  it  served  to  foster  in  him  a  very 

5  scrupulous  literary  sincerity  with  himself.  And  it 
was  this  uncompromising  demand  for  a  matter,  in 
all  art,  derived  immediately  from  lively  personal  in- 
tuition, this  constant  appeal  to  individual  judgment, 
which  saved  his  euphuism,  even  at  its  weakest,  from 

10  lapsing  into  mere  artifice. 

Was  the  magnificent  exordium  of  Lucretius,  ad- 
dressed to  the  Goddess  Venus,  the  work  of  his  ear- 
lier manhood,  and  designed  originally  to  open  an 
argument  less  persistently  sombre  than  that  pro- 

15  test  against  the  whole  pagan  heaven  which  actually 
follows  it?  It  is  certainly  the  most  typical  expres- 
sion of  a  mood,  still  incident  to  the  young  poet, 
as  a  thing  peculiar  to  his  youth,  when  he  feels  the 
sentimental  current  setting  forcibly  along  his  veins, 

2o  and  so  much  as  a  matter  of  purely  physical  excite- 
ment, that  he  can  hardly  distinguish  it  from  the 
animation  of  external  nature,  the  upswelling  of  the 
seed  in  the  earth,  and  of  the  sap  through  the  trees. 
Flavian,  to  whom,  again,  as  to  his  later  euphuistic 

25  kinsmen,  old  mythology  seemed  as  full  of  untried, 
unexpressed  motives  and  interest  as  human  life  it- 
self, had  long  been  occupied  with  a  kind  of  mystic 
hymn  to  the  vernal  principle  of  life  in  things ;  a 
composition  shaping  itself,  little  by  little,  out  of  a 

30  thousand  dim  perceptions,  into  singularly  definite 
form  (definite  and  firm  as  fine-art  in  metal,  thought 
Marius)  for  which,  as  I  said,  he  had  caught  his 


8o  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

**  refrain,"  from  the  lips  of  the  young  men,  singing 
because  they  could  not  help  it,  in  the  streets  of 
Pisa.  And  as  oftenest  happens  also,  with  natures 
of  genuinely  poetic  quality,  those  piecemeal  begin- 
nings came  suddenly  to  harmonious  completeness  5 
among  the  fortunate  incidents,  the  physical  heat 
and  light,  of  one  singularly  happy  day. 

It  was  one  of  the  first  hot  days  of  March  —  "  the 
sacred  day  "  —  on  which,  from  Pisa,  as  from  many 
another  harbour  on  the  Mediterraviean,  the  Ship  of  ig 
his  went  to  sea,  and  every  one  walked  down  to 
the  shore-side  to  witness  the  freighting  of  the  ves- 
sel, its   launching   and  final   abandonment  among 
the  waves,  as  an  object  really  devoted  to  the  Great 
Goddess,  that  new  rival,  or  "  double,"  of  ancient  15 
Venus,  and  like  her  a  favourite  patroness  of  sailors. 
On  the  evening  next  before,  all  the  world  had  been 
abroad  to  view  the  illumination  of  the  river;  the 
stately  lines  of  building  being  wreathed  with  hun- 
dreds of  many-coloured  lamps.     The  young  men  20 
had  poured  forth  their  chorus  = — 

Cras  amet  qui  nunquam  amavit, 
Quique  amavit  cras  amet  — 

as  they  bore  their  torches  through  the  yielding 
crowd,  or  rowed  their  lanterned  boats*  up  and  down 
the  stream,  till  far  into  the  night,  when  heavy  rain- 
drops had  driven  the  last  lingerers  home.  Morn-  25 
ing  broke,  however,  smiling  and  serene ;  and  the 
long  procession  started  betimes.  The  river,  curv- 
ing slightly,  with  the  smoothly  paved  streets  on 
either  side,  between  its  low  marble  parapet  and  the 
fair  dwelling-houses,  formed  the  main  highway  of  30 


EUPHUISM  8i 

the  city;  and  the  pageant,  accompanied  through- 
out by  innumerable  lanterns  and  wax  tapers,  took 
its  course  up  one  of  these  streets,  crossing  the 
water  by  a  bridge  up-stream,  and  down  the  other, 

5  to  the  haven,  every  possible  standing-place,  out  of 
doors  and  within,  being  crowded  with  sight-seers, 
of  whom  Marius  was  one  of  the  most  eager,  deeply 
interested  in  finding  the  spectacle  much  as  Apuleius 
had  described  it  in  his  famous  book. 

lo  At  the  head  of  the  procession,  the  master  of  cere- 
monies, quietly  waving  back  the  assistants,  made 
way  for  a  number  of  women,  scattering  perfumes. 
They  were  succeeded  by  a  company  of  musicians, 
piping  and  twanging,  on  instruments  the  strangest 

15  Marius  had  ever  beheld,  the  notes  of  a  hymn,  nar- 
rating the  first  origin  of  this  votive  rite  to  a  choir 
of  youths,  who  marched  behind  them  singing  it. 
The  tire-women  and  other  personal  attendants  of 
the  great  goddess  came  next,  bearing  the  instru- 

20  ments  of  their  ministry,  and  various  articles  from 
the  sacred  wardrobe,  wrought  of  the  most  precious 
material ;  some  of  them  with  long  ivory  combs,  ply- 
ing their  hands  in  wild  yet  graceful  concert  of 
movement  as  they  went,  in  devout  mimicry  of  the 

25  toilet.  Placed  in  their  rear  were  the  mirror-bear- 
ers of  the  goddess,  carrying  large  mirrors  of  beaten 
brass  or  silver,  turned  in  such  a  way  as  to  reflect 
to  the  great  body  of  worshippers  who  followed,  the 
face  of  the  mysterious  image,  as  it  moved  on  its 

30  way,  and  their  faces  to  it,  as  though  they  were  in 

fact  advancing  to  meet  the  heavenly  visitor.    They 

comprehended  a  multitude  of  both  sexes  and  of  all 

ages,  already  initiated  into  the  divine  secret,  clad 

6 


82  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

in  fair  linen,  the  females  veiled,  the  males  with 
shining  tonsures,  and  every  one  carrying  a  sistrum 
—  the  richer  sort  of  silver,  a  few  very  dainty  per- 
sons of  fine  gold  —  rattling  the  reeds,  with  a  noise 
like  the  jargon  of  innumerable  birds  and  insects  5 
awakened  from  torpor  and  abroad  in  the  spring 
sun.  Then,  borne  upon  a  kind  of  platform,  came 
the  goddess  herself,  undulating  above  the  heads  of 
the  multitude  as  the  bearers  walked,  in  mystic  robe 
embroidered  with  the  moon  and  stars,  bordered  la 
gracefully  with  a  fringe  of  real  fruit  and  flowers, 
and  with  a  glittering  crown  upon  the  head.  The 
train  of  the  procession  consisted  of  the  priests  in 
\ong  white  vestments,  close  from  head  to  foot,  dis- 
tributed into  various  groups,  each  bearing,  exposed  15 
aloft,  one  of  the  sacred  symbols  of  Isis  —  the  corn- 
fan,  the  golden  asp,  the  ivory  hand  of  equity,  and 
am.ong  them  the  votive  ship  itself,  carved  and  gilt, 
and  adorned  bravely  with  flags  flying.  Last  of  all 
walked  the  high  priest ;  the  people  kneeling  as  he  20 
passed  to  kiss  his  hand,  in  which  were  those  well- 
remembered  roses. 

Marius  followed  with  the  rest  to  the  harbour, 
where  the  mystic  ship,  lowered  from  the  shoulders 
of  the  priests,  was  loaded  with  as  much  as  it  could  25 
carry  of  the  rich  spices  and  other  costly  gifts,  of- 
fered in  great  profusion  by  the  worshippers,  and 
thus,  launched  at  last  upon  the  water,  left  the 
shore,  crossing  the  harbour-bar  in  the  wake  of  a 
much  stouter  vessel  than  itself  with  a  crew  of  white-  3a 
robed  mariners,  whose  function  it  was,  at  the  ap- 
pointed moment,  finally  to  desert  it  on  the  open  sea. 

The  remainder  of  the  day  was  spent  by  most  in 


EUPHUISM  83 

parties  on  the  water.  Flavian  and  Marius  sailed 
further  than  they  had  ever  done  before  to  a  wild 
spot  on  the  bay,  the  traditional  site  of  a  little  Greek 
colony,  which,  having  had  its  eager,  stirring  life  at 

5  the  time  when  Etruria  was  still  a  power  in  Italy, 
had  perished  in  the  age  of  the  civil  wars.  In  the 
absolute  transparency  of  the  air  on  this  gracious 
day,  an  infinitude  of  detail  from  sea  and  shore 
reached  the   eye  with  sparkling  clearness,   as  the 

10  two  lads  sped  rapidly  over  the  waves  —  Flavian  at 
work  suddenly,  from  time  to  time,  with  his  tablets. 
They  reached  land  at  last.  The  coral-fishers  had 
spread  their  nets  on  the  sands,  with  a  tumble-down 
of  quaint,  many-hued  treasures,  below  a  little  shrine 

15  of  Venus,  fluttering  and  gay  with  the  scarves  and 
napkins  and  gilded  shells  which  these  people  had 
offered  to  the  image.  Flavian  and  Marius  sat 
down  under  the  shadow  of  a  mass  of  gray  rock 
or  ruin,  where  the  sea-gate  of  the  Greek  town  had 

20  been,  and  talked  of  life  in  those  old  Greek  colonies. 
Of  this  place,  all  that  remained,  besides  those  rude 
stones,  was  —  a  handful  of  silver  coins,  each  with 
a  head  of  pure  and  archaic  beauty,  though  a  little 
cruel   perhaps,    supposed    to    represent    the    Siren 

B5  Ligeia,  whose  tomb  was  formerly  shown  here  — 
only  these,  and  an  ancient  song,  the  very  strain 
which  Flavian  had  recovered  in  those  last  months. 
They  were  records  which  spoke,  certainly,  of  the 
charm    of   life   within   those   walls.      How   strong 

30  must  have  been  the  tide  of  men's  existence  in  that 
little  republican  town,  so  small  that  this  circle  of 
gray  stones,  of  service  now  only  by  the  moisture 
they    gathered    for    the    blue-flowering    gentians 


84  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

among  them,  had  been  the  line  of  its  rampart!  An 
epitome  of  all  that  was  liveliest,  most  animated  and 
adventurous,  in  the  old  Greek  people  of  which  it 
was  an  offshoot,  it  had  enhanced  the  effect  of  these 
gifts  by  concentration  within  narrow  limits.  The  5 
band  of  "  devoted  youth,"  Upd  vsovq^  —  of  the 
younger  brothers,  devoted  to  the  gods  and  what- 
ever luck  the  gods  might  afford,  because  there  was 
no  room  for  them  at  home  —  went  forth,  bearing 
the  sacred  flame  from  the  mother-hearth ;  itself  a  10 
flame,  of  power  to  consume  the  whole  material  of 
existence  in  clear  light  and  heat,  with  no  smoulder- 
ing residue.  The  life  of  those  vanished  townsmen, 
so  brilliant  and  revolutionary,  applying  so  abun- 
dantly the  personal  qualities  which  alone  just  then  i\ 
Marius  seemed  to  value,  associated  itself  with  the 
actual  figure  of  his  companion,  standing  there  be- 
fore him,  his  face  enthusiastic  with  the  sudden 
thought  of  all  that ;  and  struck  him  vividly  as  pre- 
cisely the  fitting  opportunity  for  a  nature  like  his,  20 
so  hungry  for  control,  for  ascendency  over  men. 

Marius  noticed  also,  however,  as  high  spirits 
flagged  at  last,  on  the  way  home  through  the  heavy 
dew  of  the  evening,  more  than  physical  fatigue  in 
Flavian,  who  seemed  to  find  no  refreshment  in  the  25 
coolness.  There  had  been  something  feverish,  per- 
haps, and  like  the  beginning  of  sickness,  about  his 
almost  forced  gaiety,  in  this  sudden  spasm  of 
spring ;  and  by  the  evening  of  the  next  day  he  was 
lying  with  a  burning  spot  on  his  forehead,  stricken,  30 
as  was  thought  from  the  first,  by  the  terrible  new 
disease. 

(From  Marius  the  Epicurean,  chapter  vi,  1885.) 


Divine  Service 

*'  Wisdom  hath  builded  herself  a  house:  she  hath  mingled  her 
wine:  she  hath  also  prepared  for  herself  a  table." 

The  more  highly  favoured  ages  of  imaginative 
art  present  instances  of  the  summing  up  of  an  entire 
world  of  complex  associations  under  some  single 
form,  like  the  Zetis  of  Olympia,  or  the  series  of 

5  frescoes  which  commemorate  The  Acts  of  Saini 
Francis,  at  Assisi,  or  like  the  play  of  Hamlet  or 
Faust.  It  was  not  in  an  image,  or  series  of  images, 
yet  still  in  a  sort  of  dramatic  action,  and  with  the 
unity  of  a  single  appeal  to  eye  and  ear,  that  Marius 

lo  about  this  time  found  all  his  new  impressions  set 
forth,  regarding  what  he  had  already  recognised, 
intellectually,  as  for  him  at  least  the  most  beauti- 
ful thing  in  the  world. 

To  understand  the  influence  upon  him  of  what 

15  follows  the  reader  must  remember  that  it  was  an 
experience  which  came  amid  a  deep  sense  of  vacuity 
in  life.  The  fairest  products  of  the  earth  seemed  to 
be  dropping  to  pieces,  as  if  in  men's  very  hands, 
around  him.     How  real  was  their  sorrow,  and  his ! 

20  "  His  observation  of  life  "  had  come  to  be  like  the 
constant  telling  of  a  sorrowful  rosary,  day  after 
day ;  till,  as  if  taking  infection  from  the  cloudy  sor- 
row of  the  mind,  the  eye  also,  the  very  senses,  were 
grown  faint  and  sick.     And  now  it  happened  as 

25  with  the  actual  morning  on  which  he  found  him- 
self a  spectator  of  this  new  thing.    The  long  win- 
85 


86  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

ter  had  been  a  season  of  unvarying  siillenness.  At 
last,  on  this  clay  he  awoke  with  a  sharp  flash  of 
lightning  in  the  earliest  twilight:  in  a  little  while 
the  heavy  rain  had  filtered  the  air :  the  clear  light 
was  abroad ;  and,  as  though  the  spring  had  set  in  5 
with  a  sudden  leap  in  the  heart  of  things,  the  whole 
scene  around  him  lay  like  some  untarnished  picture 
beneath  a  sky  of  delicate  blue.  Under  the  spell  of 
his  late  depression,  Marius  had  suddenly  determined 
to  leave  Rome  for  awhile.  But  desiring  first  to  k; 
advertise  Cornelius  of  his  movements,  and  failing 
to  find  him  in  his  lodgings,  he  had  ventured,  still 
early  in  the  day,  to  seek  him  in  the  Cecilian  villa. 
Passing  through  its  silent  and  empty  court-yard  he 
loitered  for  a  moment,  to  admire.  Under  the  clear  15 
but  immature  light  of  winter  morning  after  a  storm, 
all  the  details  of  form  and  colour  in  the  old  marbles 
were  distinctly  visible,  and  with  a  kind  of  seventy 
or  sadness  —  so  it  struck  him  —  amid  their  beauty  : 
in  them,  and  in  all  other  details  of  the  scene  —  the  20 
cypresses,  the  bunches  of  pale  daiTodils  in  the  grass, 
the  curves  of  the  purple  hills  of  Tusculum,  with  the 
drifts  of  virgin  snow  still  lying  in  their  hollows. 

The  little  open  door,  through  which  he  passed 
from  the  court-yard,  admitted  him  into  what  was  25 
plainly  the  vast  Lararium,  or  domestic  sanctuary, 
of  the  Cecilian  family,  transformed  in  many  par- 
ticulars, but  still  richly  decorated,  and  retaining 
much  of  its  ancient  furniture  in  metal-work  and 
costly  stone.  The  peculiar  half-light  of  dawn  30 
seemed  to  be  lingering  beyond  its  hour  upon  the 
solemn  marble  walls :  and  here,  though  at  that  mo- 
ment in  absolute  silence,  a  great  company  of  people 


DIVINE  SERVICE  87 

was  assembled.  In  that  brief  period  of  peace,  dur- 
ing which  the  church  emerged  for  awhile  from  her 
jealously-guarded  subterranean  life,  the  rigour  of 
im  earlier  rule  of  exclusion  had  been  relaxed.     And 

5  so  it  came  to  pass  that,  on  this  morning  Marius  saw 
for  the  first  time  the  wonderful  spectacle  —  won- 
derful, especially,  in  its  evidential  power  over  him- 
self, over  his  own  thoughts  —  of  those  who  believe. 
There   were   noticeable,    among    those    present, 

10  great  varieties  of  rank,  of  age,  of  personal  type. 
The  Roman  ingenmis,  with  the  white  toga  and  gold 
ring,  stood  side  by  side  with  his  slave ;  and  the  air 
of  the  whole  company  was,  above  all,  a  grave  one, 
an  air  of  recollection.     Coming  thus  unexpectedly 

15  upon  this  large  assembly,  so  entirely  united,  in  a 
silence  so  profound,  for  purposes  unknown  to  him, 
Alarius  felt  for  a  moment  as  if  he  had  stumbled  by 
chance  upon  some  great  conspiracy.  Yet  that  could 
scarcely   be,    for  the   people   here   collected   might 

20  have  figured  as  the  earliest  handsel,  or  pattern,  of 
a  new  world,  from  the  very  face  of  which  discon- 
tent had  passed  away.  Corresponding  to  the  vari- 
ety of  human  type  there  present,  was  the  various 
expression   of    every   form    of    human    sorrow    as- 

25  suaged.  What  desire,  what  fulfilment  of  desire,  had 
wrought  so  pathetically  on  the  features  of  these 
ranks  of  aged  men  and  women  of  humble  condi- 
tion? Those  young  men,  bent  down  so  discreetly 
on  the  details  of  their  sacred  service,  had  faced  life 

30  and  were  glad,  by  some  science,  or  light  of  knowl- 
edge they  had,  to  which  there  had  certainly  been 
no  parallel  in  the  older  world.  Was  some  credible 
message  from  beyond  "  the  flaming  rampart  of  the 


88  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

world  "  —  a  message  of  hope,  regarding  the  place 
of  men's  souls  and  their  interest  in  the  sum  of 
things  —  already  moulding  anew  their  very  bodies, 
and  looks,  and  voices,  now  and  here?  At  least, 
there  was  a  cleansing  and  kindling  flame  at  work  5 
in  them,  which  seemed  to  make  everything  else 
Marius  had  ever  known  look  comparatively  vulgar 
and  mean.  There  were  the  children,  above  all  — 
troops  of  children  —  reminding  him  of  those  pa- 
thetic children's  graves,  like  cradles  or  garden-beds,  la 
he  had  noticed  in  his  first  visit  to  these  places ;  and 
they  more  than  satisfied  the  odd  curiosity  he  had 
then  conceived  about  them,  wondering  in  what 
quaintly  expressive  forms  they  might  come  forth 
into  the  daylight,  if  awakened  from  sleep.  Children  15 
of  the  Catacombs,  som-;  but  **  a  span  long,"  with 
features  not  so  much  beautiful  as  heroic  (that  world 
of  new,  refining  sentiment  having  set  its  seal  even 
on  childhood),  they  retained  certainly  no  stain  or 
trace  of  anything  subterranean  this  morning,  in  the  20 
aUcrity  of  their  worship  —  as  ready  as  if  they  had 
been  at  play  —  stretching  forth  their  hands,  crying, 
chanting  in  a  resonant  voice,  and  with  boldly  up- 
turned faces,  Christe  Eleison! 

For  the  silence  —  silence,  amid  those  lights  of  25 
early  morning  to  which  Marius  had  always  been 
constitutionally  impressible,  as  having  in  them  a 
certain  reproachful  austerity  —  was  broken  sud- 
denly by  resounding  cries  of  Kyrie  Eleison!  Christe 
Eleison!  repeated  alternately,  again  and  again,  until 3c 
the  bishop,  rising  from  his  chair,  made  sign  that 
this  prayer  should  cease.  But  the  voices  burst  out 
once  more  presently,  in  richer  and  more  varied  mel- 


DIVINE  SERVICE  89 

ody,  though  still  of  an  antiphonal  character;  the 
men,  the  women  and  children,  the  deacons,  the 
people,  answering  one  another,  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  a  Greek  chorus.  But  again  with  what 
5  a  novelty  of  poetic  accent ;  what  a  genuine  expan- 
sion of  heart ;  what  profound  intimations  for  the 
intellect,  as  the  meaning  of  the  words  grew  upon 
him!  Cum  grandi  affcctu  et  compimctione  dicatiir  — 
says  an  ancient  eucharistic  order ;  and  certainly,  the 

10  mystic  tone  of  this  praying  and  singing  was  one 
with  the  expression  of  deliverance,  of  grateful  as- 
surance and  sincerity,  upon  the  faces  of  those  as- 
sembled. As  if  some  searching  correction,  a  regen- 
eration of  the  body  by  the  spirit,  had  begun,  and 

15  was  already  gone  a  great  way,  the  countenances  of 
men,  women,  and  children  alike  had  a  brightness 
on  them  which  he  could  fancy  reflected  upon  him- 
self—  an  amenity,  a  mystic  amiability  and  unction, 
which  found  its  way  most  readily  of  all  to  the  hearts 

20  of  children  themselves.  The  religious  poetry  of 
those  Hebrew  psalms  —  Benedixisti  Domine  terrain 
tuam:  Dixit  Dominus  Domino  meo,  sede  a  dextris 
meis  —  was  certainly  in  marvellous  accord  with  the 
lyrical  instinct  of  his  own  character.    Those  august 

25  hymns,  he  thought,  must  thereafter  ever  remain  by 
him  as  among  the  well-tested  powers  in  things  to 
soothe  and  fortify  the  soul.  One  could  never  grow 
tired  of  them ! 

In  the  old  pagan  worship  there  had  been  little 

30  to  call  the  understanding  into  play.  Here,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  utterance,  the  eloquence,  the  music 
of  worship  conveyed,  as  INIarius  readily  understood, 
a  fact  or  series  of  facts,  for  intellectual  reception. 


90  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

That  became  evident,  more  especially,  in  those  les- 
sons, or  sacred  readings,  which,  like  the  singing, 
in  broken  vernacular  Latin,  occurred  at  certain  in- 
tervals, amid  the  silence  of  the  assembly.  There 
were  readings,  again  with  bursts  of  chanted  invo-  5 
cation  between  for  fuller  light  on  a  difficult  path, 
in  which  many  a  vagrant  voice  of  human  philos- 
ophy, haunting  men's  minds  from  of  old,  recurred 
with  clearer  accent  than  had  ever  belonged  to  it 
before,  as  if  lifted,  above  its  first  intention,  into  the  10 
harmonies  of  some  supreme  system  of  knowledge 
or  doctrine,  at  length  complete.  And  last  of  all 
came  a  narrative  which,  with  a  thousand  tender 
memories,  every  one  appeared  to  know  by  heart, 
displaying,  in  all  the  vividness  of  a  picture  for  the  15 
eye,  the  mournful  figure  of  him  towards  whom  this 
whole  act  of  worship  still  consistently  turned- — a 
figure  which  seemed  to  have  absorbed,  like  some 
rich  tincture  in  his  garment,  all  that  was  deep-felt 
and  impassioned  in  the  experiences  of  the  past.       20 

It  was  the  anniversary  of  his  birth  as  a  little 
child  they  celebrated  to-day.  Astitertmt  reges  terrce: 
so  the  Gradual,  the  ''  Song  of  Degrees,"  proceeded, 
the  young  men  on  the  steps  of  the  altar  responding 
in  deep,  clear,  antiphon  or  chorus —  '  25 

Astiterunt  reges  terrse — 

Adversus  sanctum  puerum  tuum,  Jesum: 

Nunc,  Domine,  da  servis  tuis  loqui  verbum  tuum  — 

Et  signa  fieri,  per  nomen  sancti  pueri  Jesu. 

And  the  proper  action  of  the  rite  itself,  like  a  half- 
opened  book  to  be  read  by  the  duly  initiated  mind, 
took  up  those  suggestions,  and  carried  them  forward 
into  the  present,  as  having  reference  to  a  power  still 


DIVINE  SERVICE  91 

efficacious,  still  after  some  mystic  sense  even  now 
in  action  among  the  people  there  assembled.  The 
entire  office,  indeed,  with  its  interchange  of  les- 
sons, hymns,  prayer,  silence,  was  itself  like  a  single 

5  piece  of  highly  composite,  dramatic  music;  a  ''song 
of  degrees,"  rising  steadily  to  a  climax.  Notwith- 
standing the  absence  of  any  central  image  visible 
to  the  eye,  the  entire  ceremonial  process,  like  the 
place  in  which  it  was  enacted,  was  weighty  with 

10  symbolic  significance,  seemed  to  express  a  single 
leading  motive.  The  mystery,  if  such  in  fact  it  was, 
centered  indeed  in  the  actions  of  one  visible  per- 
son, distinguished  among  the  assistants,  who  stood 
ranged  in  semi-circle  around  him,  by  the  extreme 

15  fineness  of  his  white  vestments,  and  the  pointed 
cap  with  the  golden  ornaments  upon  his  head. 

Nor  had  Marius  ever  seen  the  pontifical  charac- 
ter, as  he  conceived  it  —  sicut  luignentum  in  capite, 
descendens  in  oram  vcstimenti  —  so  fully  realised,  as 

20  in  the  expression,  the  manner  and  voice,  of  this 
novel  pontiff,  as  he  took  his  seat  on  the  white  chair 
placed  for  him  by  the  young  men,  and  received  his 
long  stafif  into  his  hand,  or  moved  his  hands  — 
hands  which  seemed  endowed  in  very  deed  with 

35  some  mysterious  power  —  at  the  Lavaho,  or  at  the 
various  benedictions,  or  to  bless  certain  objects 
on  the  table  before  him,  chanting  in  cadence  of  a 
grave  sweetness  the  leading  parts  of  the  rite.  What 
profound  unction  and  mysticity  !    The  solemn  char- 

3oacter  of  the  singing  was  at  its  lieight  when  he 
opened  his  lips.  Like  some  new  sort  of  rhapsodos, 
it  was  for  the  moment  as  if  he  alone  possessed  the 
words  of  the  office,  and  they  flowed  anew  from 


92  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

some  permanent  source  of  inspiration  within  him. 
The  table  or  altar  at  which  he  presided,  below  a 
canopy  on  delicate  spiral  columns,  was  in  fact  the 
tomb  of  a  youthful  "  witness,"  of  the  family  of 
the  Cecilii,  who  had  shed  his  blood  not  many  years  5 
before,  and  whose  relics  were  still  in  this  place.  It 
was  for  his  sake  the  bishop  put  his  lips  so  often  to 
the  surface  before  him;  the  regretful  memory  of 
that  death  entwining  itself,  though  not  without  cer- 
tain notes  of  triumph,  as  a  matter  of  special  inward  10 
significance,  throughout  a  service,  which  was,  be- 
fore all  else,  from  first  to  last,  a  commemoration  of 
the  dead. 

A  sacrifice  also, —  a  sacrifice,  it  might  seem,  like 
the  most  primitive,  the  most  natural  and  enduringly  15 
significant  of  old  pagan  sacrifices,  of  the  simplest 
fruits  of  the  earth.     And  in  connexion  with  this 
circumstance  again,  as  in  the  actual  stones  of  the 
building  so  in  the  rite  itself,  what  Alarius  observed 
was  not  so  much  new  matter  as  a  new  spirit,  mould-  2c 
ing,  informing,  with  a  new  intention,  many  observ- 
ances not  witnessed  for  the  first  time  to-day.    Men 
and  women  came  to  the  altar  successively,  in  per- 
fect order,  and  deposited  below  the  lattice-work  of 
pierced  white  marble,  their  baskets  of  wheat  and  25 
grapes,  incense,  oil  for  the  sanctuary  lamps ;  bread 
and  wine  especially  —  pure  wheaten  bread,  the  pure 
white  wine  of  the  Tusculan  vineyards.     There  was 
here  a  veritable  consecration,  hopeful  and  animat- 
ing, of  the  earth's  gifts,  of  old  dead  and  dark  mat-  30 
ter  itself,  now  in  some  way  redeemed  at  last,  of  all 
that  we  can  touch  or  see,  in  the  midst  of  a  jaded 
world  that  had  lost  the  true  sense  of  such  things. 


DIVINE  SERVICE  93 

and  in  strong  contrast  to  the  wise  emperor's  renun- 
ciant  and  impassive  attitude  towards  them.  Certain 
portions  of  that  bread  and  wine  were  taken  into 
the  bishop's  hands ;  and  thereafter,  with  an  increas- 
5  ing  mysticity  and  effusion  the  rite  proceeded.  Still 
in  a  strain  of  inspired  supplication,  the  antiphonal 
singing  developed,  from  this  point,  into  a  kind  of 
dialogue  between  the  chief  minister  and  the  whole 
assisting  company  — 

suRSUM  corda! 

HABEMUS  AD   DOMINUM. 

GRATIAS  AGAMUS  DOMINO  DEO  NOSTRO  ! 

10  It  might  have  been  thought  the  business,  the  duty 
or  service  of  young  men  more  particularly,  as  they 
stood  there  in  long  ranks,  and  in  severe  and  simple 
vesture  of  the  purest  white — a  service  in  which  they 
would  seem  to  be  flying  for  refuge,  as  with  their 

15  precious,  their  treacherous  and  critical  youth  in  their 
hands,  to  one  —  Yes !  one  like  themselves,  who  yet 
claimed  their  worship,  a  worship,  above  all,  in 
the  way  of  Aurelius,  in  the  way  of  imitation.  Ado- 
ramus  te  Christe,  quia  per  crucem  tiiam  redemisti  mun- 

20  diim!  —  they  cry  together.  So  deep  is  the  emotion 
that  at  moments  it  seems  to  Marius  as  if  some  there 
present  apprehend  that  prayer  prevails,  that  the 
very  object  of  this  pathetic  crying  himself  draws 
near.     From  the  first  there  had  been  the  sense,  an 

25  increasing  assurance,  of  one  coming  :  —  actuallv 
with  them  now,  according  to  the  oft-repeated  afilir- 
mation  or  petition,  Dominus  vohiscnm!  Some  at 
least  were  quite  sure  of  it ;  and  the  confidence  of 
this  remnant  fired  the  hearts,  and  gave  meaning  to 


94  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

the   bold,   ecstatic   worship,   of  all   the   rest   about 
them. 

Prompted  especially  by  the  suggestions  of  that 
mysterious  old  Jewish  psalmody,  so  new  to  him  — 
lesson  and  hymn  —  and  catching  therewith  a  por-  5 
tion  of  the  enthusiasm  of  those  beside  him,  Marius 
could  discern  dimly,  behind  the  solemn  recitation 
which  now  followed,  at  once,  a  narrative  and  a 
prayer,  the  most  touching  image  truly  that  had 
ever  come  within  the  scope  of  his  mental  or  physi-  10 
cal  gaze.  It  was  the  image  of  a  young  man  giving 
up  voluntarily,  one  by  one,  for  the  greatest  of  ends, 
the  greatest  gifts ;  actually  parting  with  himself, 
above  all,  with  the  serenity,  the  divine  serenity,  of 
his  own  soul ;  yet  from  the  midst  of  his  desolation  15 
crying  out  upon  the  greatness  of  his  success,  as  if 
foreseeing  this  very  worship.  As  centre  of  the 
supposed  facts  which  for  these  people  were  become 
so  constraining  a  motive  of  hopefulness,  of  activity, 
that  image  seemed  to  display  itself  with  an  over-  2c 
whelming  claim  on  human  gratitude.  What  Saint 
Louis  of  France  discerned,  and  found  so  irresist- 
ibly touching,  across  the  dimness  of  many  centu- 
ries, as  a  painful  thing  done  for  love  of  him  by  one 
he  had  never  seen,  was  to  them  almost  as  a  thing  25 
of  yesterday ;  and  their  hearts  were  whole  with  it. 
It  had  the  force,  among  their  interests,  of  an  al- 
most recent  event  in  the  career  of  one  whom  their 
fathers'  fathers  might  have  known.  From  memo- 
ries so  sublime,  yet  so  close  at  hand,  had  the  narra-  3a 
tive  descended  in  which  these  acts  of  worship  cen- 
tered ;  though  again  the  names  of  some  more  re- 
cently dead  were  mingled  in  it.    And  it  seemed  as 


DIVINE  SERVICE  95 

if  the  very  dead  were  aware ;  to  be  stirring  beneath 
the  slabs  of  the  sepulchres  which  lay  so  near,  that 
they  might  associate  themselves  to  this  enthusiasm 
— •  to  this  exalted  worship  of  Jesus. 

5  One  by  one,  at  last,  the  faithful  approach  to  re- 
ceive from  the  chief  minister  morsels  of  the  great, 
white,  wheaten  cake,  he  had  taken  into  his  hands 
—  Per  ducat  vos  ad  vitam  cctcrnam!  he  prays,  half- 
silently,   as   they   depart  again,   after  discreet   em- 

10  braces.  The  .  Eucharist  of  those  early  days  was, 
even  more  entirely  than  at  any  later  or  happier 
time,  an  act  of  thanksgiving;  and  while  the  rem- 
nants of  the  feast  are  borne  away  for  the  reception 
of  the  sick,  the  sustained  gladness  of  the  rite  reaches 

15  its  highest  point  in  the  singing  of  a  hymn  :  a  hymn 
like  the  spontaneous  product  of  two  opposed  mili- 
tant companies,  contending  accordantly  together, 
heightening,  accumulating,  their  witness,  provoking 
one  another's  worship,  in  a  kind  of  sacred  rivalry. 

20  he!  Missa  est!  —  cried  the  young  deacons:  and 
Marius  departed  from  that  strange  scene  along  with 
the  rest.  What  was  it?  —  Was  it  this  made  the 
way  of  Cornelius  so  pleasant  through  the  world? 
As  for  Marius  himself, —  the  natural  soul  of  wor- 

25  ship  in  him  had  at  last  been  satisfied  as  never  be- 
fore. He  felt,  as  he  left  that  place,  that  he  must 
hereafter  experience  often  a  longing  memory,  a  kind 
of  thirst,  for  all  this,  over  again.  And  it  seemed 
moreover  to   define  what  he  must  require  of  the 

30  powers,    whatsoever    they     might    be,    that     had 
brought  him  into  the  world  at  all,  to  make   him 
not  unhappy  in  it. 
(From  Marius  the  Epicurean,  chapter  xxiii^  1885.) 


H)en^6  X'Bujerrois 

Almost  every  people,  as  we  know,  has  had  its 
legend  of  a  "  golden  age  "  and  of  its  return  —  leg- 
ends which  will  hardly  be  forgotten,  however  pro- 
saic the  world  may  become,  while  man  himself 
remains  the  aspiring,  never  quite  contented  being  c; 
he  is.  And  yet  in  truth,  since  we  are  no  longer 
children,  we  might  well  question  the  advantage  of 
the  return  to  us  of  a  condition  of  life  in  which,  by 
the  nature  of  the  case,  the  values  of  things  would, 
so  to  speak,  lie  wholly  on  their  surfaces,  unless  we  le 
could  regain  also  the  childish  consciousness,  or 
rather  unconsciousness,  in  ourselves,  to  take  all 
that  adroitly  and  with  the  appropriate  lightness  of 
heart.  The  dream,  however,  has  been  left  for  the 
most  part  in  the  usual  vagueness  of  dreams:  in  15 
their  waking  hours  people  have  been  too  busy  to 
furnish  it  forth  with  details.  What  follows  is  a 
quaint  legend,  with  detail  enough,  of  such  a  re- 
turn of  a  golden  or  poetically-gilded  age  (a  deni- 
zen of  old  Greece  itself  actually  finding  his  way  20 
back  again  among  men)  as  it  happened  in  an  an- 
cient town  of  mediaeval  France. 

Of  the  French  town,  properly  so  called,  in  which 
the  products  of  successive  ages,  not  without  lively 
touches  of  the  present,  are  blended  together  har-25 
moniously,  with  a  beauty  specific  —  a  beauty  cisal- 
pine and  northern,  yet  at  the  same  time  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  massive  German  picturesque  of  Ulm, 

96 


DENYS  L'AUXERROIS  97 

or  Freiburg,  or  Augsburg,  and  of  which  Turner 
has  found  the  ideal  in  certain  of  his  studies  of  the 
rivers  of  France,  a  perfectly  happy  conjunction  of 
river  and  town  being  of  the  essence  of  its  physiog- 
5  nomy  —  the  town  of  Auxerre  is  perhaps  the  most 
complete  realisation  to  be  found  by  the  actual  wan- 
derer. Certainly,  for  picturesque  expression  it  is 
the  most  memorable  of  a  distinguished  group  of 
three   in   these    parts, —  Auxerre,    Sens,    Troyes, — 

10  each  gathered,  as  if  with  deliberate  aim  at  such 
effect,  about  the  central  mass  of  a  huge  gray  cathe- 
dral. 

Around  Troyes  the  natural  picturesque  is  to  be 
sought  only  in  the  rich,  almost  coarse,  summer  col- 

15  ouring  of  the  Champagne  country,  of  which  the 
very  tiles,  the  plaster  and  brickwork  of  its  tiny  vil- 
lages and  great,  straggling,  village-like  farms  have 
caught  the  warmth.  The  cathedral,  visible  far  and 
wide  over  the  fields  seemingly  of  loose  wild-f^ow- 

20  ers,  itself  a  rich  mixture  of  all  the  varieties  of  the 
Pointed  style  down  to  the  latest  Flamboyant,  may 
be  noticed  among  the  greater  French  churches  for 
breadth  of  proportions  internally,  and  is  famous 
for  its  almost  unrivalled  treasure  of  stained  glass, 

25  chiefly  of  a  florid,  elaborate,  later  type,  with  much 
highly  conscious  artistic  contrivance  in  design  as 
well  as  in  colour.  In  one  of  the  richest  of  its 
windows,  for  instance,  certain  lines  of  pearly  white 
run  hither  and  thither,  with  delightful  distant  effect, 

30  upon   ruby   and   dark   blue.      Approaching   nearer 

you  find  it  to  be  a  Travellers'  window,  and  thc'se 

odd  lines  of  white  the  long  walking-staves  in  the 

hands  of  Abraham,  Raphael,  the  Magi,  and  the 

7 


98  SELECT  IONS  FROM  PATER 

other  saintly  patrons  of  journeys.  The  appropriate 
provincial  character  of  the  bourgeoisie  of  Cham- 
pagne is  still  to  be  seen,  it  would  appear,  among 
the  citizens  of  Troyes.  Its  streets,  for  the  most 
part  in  timber  and  pargeting,  present  more  than  5 
one  unaltered  specimen  of  the  ancient  hotel  or  town- 
house,  with  forecourt  and  garden  in  the  rear ;  and 
its  more  devout  citizens  would  seem  even  in  their 
church-building  to  have  sought  chiefly  to  please 
the  eyes  of  those  occupied  with  mundane  affairs  lo 
and  out  of  doors,  for  they  have  finished,  with 
abundant  outlay,  only  the  vast,  useless  portals  of 
their  parish  churches,  of  surprising  height  and 
lightness,  in  a  kind  of  wildly  elegant  Gothic-on- 
stilts,  giving  to  the  streets  of  Troyes  a  peculiar  air  15 
of  the  grotesque,  as  if  in  some  quaint  nightmare 
of  the  Middle  Age. 

At  Sens,  thirty  miles  away  to  the  west,  a  place 
of  far  graver  aspect,  the  name  of  Jean  Cousin  de- 
notes a  more  chastened  temper,  even  in  these  sump-  20 
tuous  decorations.  Here  all  is  cool  and  composed, 
with  an  almost  English  austerity.  The  first  growth 
of  the  Pointed  style  in  England  —  the  hard  "  early 
English  "  of  Canterbury  —  is  indeed  the  creation 
of  William,  a  master  reared  in  the  architectural  25 
school  of  Sens ;  and  the  severity  of  his  taste  might 
seem  to  have  acted  as  a  restraining  power  on  all 
the  subsequent  changes  of  manner  in  this  place  — 
changes  in  themselves  for  the  most  part  towards 
luxuriance.  In  harmony  with  the  atmosphere  of  30 
its  great  church  is  the  cleanly  quiet  of  the  town, 
kept  fresh  by  little  channels  of  clear  water  circulat- 
ing through   its   streets,   derivatives  of  the   rapid 


DENYS  UAUXERROIS  99 

Vanne  which  falls  just  below  into  the  Yonne.  The 
Yonne,  bending  gracefully,  link  after  link,  through 
a  never-ending  rustle  of  poplar  trees,  beneath  lowly 
vine-clad    hills,    with    relics    of    delicate    woodland 

5  here  and  there,  sometimes  close  at  hand,  sometimes 
leaving  an  interval  of  broad  meadow,  has  all  the 
lightsome  characteristics  of  French  river-side  scen- 
ery on  a  smaller  scale  than  usual,  and  might  pass 
for  the  child's  fancy  of  a  river,  like  the  rivers  of 

lo  the  old  miniature-painters,  blue,  and  full  to  a  fair 
green  margin.  One  notices  along  its  course  a 
greater  proportion  than  elsewhere  of  still  un- 
touched old  seignorial  residences,  larger  or  smaller. 
The  range  of  old  gibbous  towns  along  its  banks, 

15  expanding  their  gay  quays  upon  the  water-side, 
have  a  common  character  —  Joigny,  Villeneuve, 
Saint  Julien-du-Sault  —  yet  tempt  us  to  tarry  at 
each  and  examine  its  relics,  old  glass  and  the  like, 
of  the  Renaissance  or  the  Middle  Age,  for  the  ac- 

20  qtiisition  of  real  though  minor  lessons  on  the  vari- 
ous arts  which  have  left  themselves  a  central  monu- 
ment at  Auxerre. —  Auxerre  !  A  slight  ascent  in 
the  winding  road !  and  you  have  before  you  the 
prettiest  town  in  France  —  the  broad  framework  of 

25  vineyard  sloping  upwards  gently  to  the  horizon, 
with  distant  white  cottages  inviting  one  to  walk : 
the  quiet  curve  of  river  below,  with  all  the  river- 
side details :  the  three  great  purple-tiled  masses  of 
Saint  Germain,  Saint  Pierre,  and  the  cathedral  of 

30  Saint  Etienne,  rising  out  of  the  crowded  houses 
with  more  than  the  usual  abruptness  and  irregu- 
larity of  French  building.  Here,  that  rare  artist, 
the  susceptible  painter  of  architecture,  if  he  under- 


/lOO^ 


SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 


stands  the  value  alike  of  line  and  mass,  of  broad 
masses  and  delicate  lines,  has  "  a  subject  made  to 
his  hand." 

A    veritable    country    of    the    vine,  it    presents 
nevertheless  an  expression  peaceful  rather  than  ra-  5 
diant.     Perfect  type  of  that  happy  mean  between 
northern  earnestness  and  the  luxury  of  the  south, 
for  which  we  prize  midland   France,  its  physiog- 
nomy is  not  quite  happy  —  attractive  in  part  for  its 
melancholy.     Its  most  characteristic  atmosphere  is  ic 
to  be  seen  when  the  tide  of  light  and  distant  cloud 
is  travelling  quickly  over  it,  when  rain  is  not  far 
ofif,  and  every  touch  of  art  or  of  time  on  its  old 
building  is  defined  in  clear  gray.     A  fine  summer 
ripens  its  grapes  into  a  valuable  wine;  but  in  spite  15 
of  that  it  seems  always  longing  for  a  larger  and 
more  continuous  allowance  of  the  sunshine  that  is 
so  much  to  its  taste.     You  might  fancy  something 
querulous  or  plaintive  in  that  rustling  movement 
of  the  vine-leaves,   as  blue-frocked  Jacques   Bon-2(; 
hommje  finishes  his  day's  labour  among  them, 
-c      To  beguile   one  such  afternoon  when   the  rain 
^  set  in  early  and  walking  was  impossible,  I  found 
my  way  to  the  shop  of  an  old  dealer  in  bric-a-brac. 
It  was  not  a  monotonous  display,  after  the  manner  25 
of  the  Parisian  dealer,  of  a  stock-in-trade  the  like 
of  which  one  has  seen  many  times  over,  but  a  dis- 
criminate collection  of  real  curiosities.     One  seemed 
to  recognise  a  provincial  school  of  taste  in  various 
relics  of  the  housekeeping  of  the  last  century,  with  3c 
many  a  gem  of  earlier  times  from  the  old  churches 
and  religious  houses  of  the  neighbourhood.  Among 
them  was  a  large  and  brilliant  fragment  of  stained 


DENYS  VAUXERROIS  io\ 

glass  which  might  have  come  from  the  cathedral 
itself.  Of  the  very  finest  quality  in  colour  and  de- 
sign, it  presented  a  figure  not  exactly  conformable 
to  any  recognised  ecclesiastical   type ;  and  it  was 

5  clearly  part  of  a  series.  On  my  eager  inquiry  for 
the  remainder,  the  old  man  replied  that  no  more 
of  it  was  known,  but  added  that  the  priest  of  a 
neighbouring  village  was  the  possessor  of  an  en- 
tire set  of  tapestries,  apparently  intended  for  sus- 

lo  pension  in  church,  and  designed  to  portray  the 
whole  subject  of  which  the  figure  in  the  stained 
glass  was  a  portion. 

Next    afternoon    accordingly    I    repaired   to   the 
priest's  house,   in   reality  a  little   Gothic  building, 

15  part  perhaps  of  an  ancient  manor-house,  close  to 
the  village  church.  In  the  front  garden,  flower-gar- 
den and  potager  in  one,  the  bees  were  busy  among 
the  autumn  growths  —  many-coloured  asters,  big- 
nonias,  scarlet-beans,  and    the    old-fashioned    par- 

20  sonage  flowers.  The  courteous  owner  readily 
showed  me  his  tapestries,  some  of  which  hung  on 
the  walls  of  his  parlour  and  staircase  by  way  of  a 
background  for  the  display  of  the  other  curiosities 
of  which  he  was  a  collector.    Certainly,  those  tapes- 

25  tries  and  the  stained  glass  dealt  with  the  same 
theme.  In  both  were  the  same  musical  instruments 
—  pipes,  cymbals,  long  reed-like  trumpets.  The 
story,  indeed,  included  the  building  of  an  organ, 
just  such  an  instrument,  only  on  a  larger  scale,  as 

30  was  standing  in  the  old  priest's  library,  though  al- 
most soundless  now ;  whereas  in  certain  of  the 
woven  pictures  the  hearers  appear  as  if  transported, 
some  of  them  shouting  rapturously  to  the  organ 


102  SELECriONS  FROM  PATER 

music.  A  sort  of  mad  vehemence  prevails,  indeed, 
throughcut  the  delicate  bewilderments  of  the  whole 
series  —  giddy  dances,  wild  animals  leaping,  above 
all  perpetual  wreathings  of  the  vine,  connecting, 
like  some  mazy  arabesque,  the  various  presenta-5 
tions  of  one  oft-repeated  figure,  translated  here 
out  of  the  clear-coloured  glass  into  the  sadder, 
somewhat  opaque  and  earthen  hues  of  the  silken 
threads.  The  figure  was  that  of  the  organ-builder 
himself,  a  flaxen  and  flowery  creature,  sometimes  la 
well-nigh  naked  among  the  vine-leaves,  sometimes 
muffled  in  skins  against  the  cold,  sometimes  in  the 
dress  of  a  monk,  but  always  with  a  strong  impress 
of  real  character  and  incident  from  the  veritable 
streets  of  Auxerre.  What  is  it?  Certainly,  not- 15 
withstanding  its  grace,  and  wealth  of  graceful  ac- 
cessories, a  suffering,  tortured  figure.  With  all  the 
regular  beauty  of  a  pagan  god,  he  has  suffered  aftei 
a  manner  of  which  we  must  suppose  pagan  gods 
incapable.  It  was  ,as  if  one  of  those  fair,  triumph-  2: 
ant  beings  had  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  creatures  of 
an  age  later  than  his  own,  people  of  larger  spiritual 
capacity  and  assuredly  of  a  larger  capacity  for  mel- 
ancholy. With  this  fancy  in  my  mind,  by  the  help 
of  certain  notes  which  lay  in  the  priest's  curious  25 
library  upon  the  history  of  the  works  at  the  cathe- 
dral during  the  period  of  its  finishing,  and  in  re- 
peated examination  of  the  old  tapestried  designs, 
the  story  shaped  itself  at  last. 

Towards   the   middle   of  the   thirteenth    century  30 
the  cathedral  of  Saint  Etienne  was  complete  in  its 
main  outlines :  what  remained  was  the  building  of 
the  great  tower,  and  all  that  various  labour  of  final 


DENYS  VAUXERROIS  103 

decoration  which  it  would  take  more  than  one  gen- 
eration to  accompHsh.  Certain  circumstances,  how- 
ever, not  wholly  explained,  led  to  a  somewhat  rapid 
finishing,  as  it  were  out  of  hand,  yet  with  a  mar- 

5  veilous  fulness  at  once  and  grace.  Of  the  result 
much  has  perished,  or  been  transferred  elsewhere; 
a  portion  is  still  visible  in  sumptuous  relics  of 
stained  windows,  and,  above  all,  in  the  reliefs  which 
adorn  the  western  portals,  very  delicately  carved  in 

10  a  fine,  firm  stone  from  Tonnerre,  of  which  time  has 
only  browned  the  surface,  and  which,  for  early  mas- 
tery in  art,  may  be  compared  to  the  contemporary 
work  of  Italy.  They  come  nearer  than  the  art  of 
that  age  was  used  to  do  to  the  expression  of  life; 

^5  with  a  feeling  for  reality,  in  no  ignoble  form, 
caught,  it  might  seem,  from  the  ardent  and  full- 
veined  existence  then  current  in  these  actual  streets 
and  houses.  Just  then  Auxerre  had  its  turn  in  that 
political   movement   which   broke  out   sympatheti- 

20  cally,  first  in  one,  then  in  another  of  the  towns  of 
France,  turning  their  narrow,  feudal  institutions  into 
a  free  communistic  life  —  a  movement  of  which 
those  great  centres  of  popular  devotion,  the  French 
cathedrals,  are  in  many  instances  the  monument. 

25  Closely  connected  always  with  the  assertion  of  indi- 
vidual freedom,  alike  in  mind  and  manners,  at  Aux- 
erre this  political  stir  was  associated  also,  as  cause 
or  effect,  with  the  figure  and  character  of  a  particu- 
lar personage,  long  remembered.     He  was  the  very 

30  genius,  it  would  appear,  of  that  new,  free,  generous 
manner  in  art,  active  and  potent  as  a  living  crea- 
ture. 

As  the  most  skilful  of  the  band  of  carvers  worked 


104  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

there  one  day,  with  a  labour  he  could  never  quite 
make  equal  to  the  vision  within  him,  a  finely-sculp- 
tured Greek  coffin  of  stone,  which  had  been  made 
to  serve  for  some  later  Roman  funeral,  was  un- 
earthed by  the  masons,  with  the  thing  done,  and  5 
art  achieved,  as  far  as  regards  those  final  graces 
and  harmonies  of  execution,  which  were  precisely 
what  lay  beyond  the  hand  of  the  mediaeval  work- 
man, who  for  his  part  had  largely  at  command  a 
seriousness  of  conception  lacking  in  the  old  Greek,  ig 
Within  the  coffin  lay  an  object  of  a  fresh  and  bril- 
liant clearness  among  the  ashes  of  the  dead  —  a 
flask  of  lively  green  glass,  like  a  great  emerald.  It 
might  have  been  "  the  wondrous  vessel  of  the 
Grail."  Only  this  object  seemed  to  bring  back  no  15 
ineffable  purity,  but  rather  the  riotous  and  earthy 
heat  of  old  paganism  itself.  Coated  within,  and,  as 
some  were  persuaded,  still  redolent  with  the  tawny 
sediment  of  the  Roman  wine  it  had  held  so  long 
ago,  it  was  set  aside  for  use  at  the  supper  which  20 
was  shortly  to  celebrate  the  completion  of  the  ma- 
sons' work.  Amid  much  talk  of  the  great  age  of 
gold,  and  some  random  expressions  of  hope  that 
it  might  return  again,  fine  old  wine  of  Auxerre  was 
sipped  in  small  glasses  from  the  precious  fiask  as  25 
supper  ended.  And,  whether  or  not  the  opening  of 
the  buried  vessel  had  anything  to  do  with  it,  from 
that  time  a  sort  of  golden  age  seemed  indeed  to  be 
reigning  there  for  a  while,  and  the  triumphant  com- 
pletion of  the  great  church  was  contemporary  with  30 
a  series  of  remarkable  wine  seasons.  The  vintage 
of  those  years  was  long  remembered.  Fine  and 
abundant  wine  was  to  be  found  stored  up  even  in 


DENYS  LAUXERROIS  105 

poor  men's  cottages ;  while  a  new  beauty,  a  gaiety, 
was  abroad,  as  all  the  conjoint  arts  branched  out 
exuberantly  in  a  reign  of  quiet,  delighted  labour, 
at  the  prompting,  as  it  seemed,  of  the  singular  be- 

5  ing  who  came  suddenly  and  oddly  to  Auxerre  to  be 
the  centre  of  so  pleasant  a  period,  though  in  truth 
he  made  but  a  sad  ending. 

A  singular  usage  long  perpetuated  itself  at  Aux- 
erre.    On  Easter  Day  the  canons,  in  the  very  cen- 

lotre  of  the  great  church,  played  solemnly  at  ball. 
Vespers  being  sung,  instead  of  conducting  the 
bishop  to  his  palace,  they  proceeded  in  order  into 
the  nave,  the  people  standing  in  two  long  rows  to 
watch.     Girding  up  their  skirts  a  little  way,   the 

15  whole  body  of  clerics  awaited  their  turn  in  silence, 
while  the  captain  of  the  singing-boys  cast  the  ball 
into  the  air,  as  high  as  he  might,  along  the  vaulted 
roof  of  the  central  aisle  to  be  caught  by  any  boy 
who  could,  and  tossed  again  with  hand  or  foot  till 

20  it  passed  on  to  the  portly  chanters,  the  chaplains, 
the  canons  themselves,  who  finally  played  out  the 
game  with  all  the  decorum  of  an  ecclesiastical  cere- 
mony. It  was  just  then,  just  as  the  canons  took 
the  ball  to  themselves  so  gravely,  that  Denys  — 

25  Denys  I'Auxerrois,  as  he  was  afterwards  called  — 
appeared  for  the  first  time.  Leaping  in  among  the 
timid  children,  he  made  the  thing  really  a  game. 
The  boys  played  like  boys,  the  men  almost  like 
madmen,  and  all  with  a  delightful  glee  which  be- 

30  came  contagious,  first  in  the  clerical  body,  and  then 
among  the  spectators.  The  aged  Dean  of  the 
Chapter,  Protonotary  of  his  Holiness,  held  up  his 
purple  skirt  a  little  higher,  and  stepping  from  the 


io6  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

ranks  with  an  amazing  levity,  as  if  suddenly  re- 
lieved of  his  burden  of  eighty  years,  tossed  the  ball 
with  his  foot  to  the  venerable  capitular  Homilist, 
equal  to  the  occasion.  And  then,  unable  to  stand 
inactive  any  longer,  the  laity  carried  on  the  games 
among  themselves,  with  shouts  of  not  too  boister- 
ous amusement ;  the  sport  continuing  till  the  flight 
of  the  ball  could  no  longer  be  traced  along  the 
dusky  aisles. 

Though  the  home  of  his  childhood  was  but  aio 
humble  one  —  one  of  those   little  cliff-houses   cut 
out  in  the  low  chalky  hillside,  such  as  are  still  to 
be   found   with   inhabitants   in   certain   districts   of 
France  —  there  were  some  who  connected  his  birth 
with   the  story   of  a   beautiful    country  girl,   who,  15 
about  eighteen  years  before,  had  been  taken  from 
her  own  people,  not  unwillingly,  for  the  pleasure 
of  the  Count  of  Auxerre.     She  had  wished  indeed 
to  see  the  great  lord,  who  had  sought  her  privately, 
in  the  glory  of  his  own  house ;  but,  terrified  by  the  20 
strange  splendours  of  her  new  abode  and  manner 
of  life,  and  the  anger  of  the  true  wife,  she  had  fled 
suddenly  from  the  place  during  the  confusion  of  a 
violent  storm,  and  in  her  flight  given  birth  prema- 
turely to  a  child.     The  child,  a  singularly  fair  one,  25 
was  found  alive,  but  the  mother  dead,  by  lightning- 
stroke  as  it  seemed,  not  far  from  her  lord's  cham- 
ber-door, under   the   shelter   of  a   ruined    ivy-clad 
tower.     Denys  himself  certainly  was  a  joyous  lad 
enough."   At  the  cliff-side  cottage,  nestling  actually  30 
beneath  the  vineyards,  he  grew  to  be  an  unrivalled 
gardener,  and,  grown    to    manhood,  brought    his 
produce  to  market,  keeping  a  stall  in  the  great 


DENYS  UAUXERROIS  107 

cathedral  square  for  the  sale  of  melons  and  pome- 
granates, all  manner  of  seeds  and  flowers,  {omnia 
speciosa  caniponun,)  honey  also,  wax  tapers,  sweet- 
meats hot  from  the  frying-pan,  rough  home-made 
5  pots  and  pans  from  the  little  pottery  in  the  wood, 
loaves  baked  by  the  aged  woman  in  whose  house 
he  lived.  On  that  Easter  Day  he  had  entered  the 
great  church  for  the  first  time,  for  the  purpose  of 
seeing  the  game. 

10  And  from  the  very  first,  the  women  who  saw 
him  at  his  business,  or  watering  his  plants  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening,  idled  for  him.  The  men  who 
noticed  the  crowd  of  women  at  his  stall,  and  how 
even  fresh   young  girls  from   the  country,  seeing 

15  him  for  the  first  time,  always  loitered  there,  sus- 
pected —  who  could  tell  what  kind  of  powers  ?  hid- 
den under  the  white  veil  of  that  youthful  form ;  and 
pausing  to  ponder  the  matter,  found  themselves  also 
fallen  into  the  snare.     The  sight  of  him  made  old 

20  people  feel  young  again.  Even  the  sage  monk 
Hermes,  devoted  to  study  and  experiment,  was  un- 
able to  keep  the  fruit-seller  out  of  his  mind,  and 
would  fain  have  discovered  the  secret  of  his  charm, 
partly  for  the  friendly  purpose  of  explaining  to  the 

25  lad  himself  his  perhaps  more  than  natural  gifts  with 
a  view  to  their  profitable  cultivation. 

It  was  a  period,  as  older  men  took  note,  of 
young  men  and  their  influence.  They  took  fire, 
no  one  could  quite  explain  how,  as  if  at  his  pres- 

30  ence,  and  asserted  a  wonderful  amount  of  volition, 
of  insolence,  yet  as  if  with  the  consent  of  their  eld- 
ers, who  would  themselves  sometimes  lose  their 
balance,  a  little  comically.    That  revolution  in  the 


io8  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

temper  and  manner  of  individuals  concurred  with 
the  movement  then  on  foot  at  Auxerre,  as  in  other 
French  towns,  for  the  Hberation  of  the  commune 
from  its  old  feudal  superiors.  Denys  they  called 
Frank,  among  many  other  nicknames.  Youngs 
lords  prided  themselves  on  saying  that  labour 
should  have  its  ease,  and  were  almost  prepared  to 
take  freedom,  plebeian  freedom  (of  course  duly 
decorated,  at  least  with  wild-flowers)  for  a  bride. 
For  in  truth  Denys  at  his  stall  was  turning  the  la 
grave,  slow  movement  of  politic  heads  into  a  wild 
social  license,  which  for  a  while  made  life  like  a 
stage-play.  He  first  led  those  long  processions, 
through  which  by  and  by  "  the  little  people,"  the 
discontented,  the  despairing,  would  utter  their  15 
minds.  One  man  engaged  with  another  in  talk  in 
the  market-place;  a  new  influence  came  forth  at 
the  contact;  another  and  then  another  adhered;  at 
last  a  new  spirit  was  abroad  everywhere.  The  hot 
nights  were  noisy  with  swarming  troops  of  dis-20 
bevelled  women  and  youths  with  red-stained  limbs 
and  faces,  carrying  their  lighted  torches  over  the 
vine-clad  hills,  or  rushing  down  the  streets,  to  the 
horror  of  timid  watchers,  towards  the  cool  spaces 
by  the  river.  A  shrill  music,  a  laughter  at  all  25 
things,  was  everywhere.  And  the  new  spirit  re- 
paired even  to  church  to  take  part  in  the  novel 
offices  of  the  Feast  of  Fools.  Heads  flung  back  in 
ecstasy  —  the  morning  sleep  among  the  vines, 
when  the  fatigue  of  the  night  was  over  —  dew-  30 
drenched  garments  —  the  serf  lying  at  his  ease  at 
jast :  —  the  artists,  then  so  numerous  at  the  place, 
caught  what  they  could,  something,  at  least,  of  the 


DENYS  VAUXERROIS  109 

richness,  the  flexibility  of  the  visible  aspects  of  life, 
from  all  this.  With  them  the  life  of  seeming  idle- 
ness, to  which  Denys  was  conducting  the  youth  of 
Auxerre  so  pleasantly,  counted  but  as  the  cultiva- 
5  tion,  for  their  due  service  to  man,  of  delightful  na- 
tural things.  And  the  powers  of  nature  concurred. 
It  seemed  there  would  be  winter  no  more.  The 
planet  Mars  drew  nearer  to  the  earth  than  usual, 
hanging  in  the  low  sky  like  a  fiery  red  lamp.     A 

10  massive  but  well-nigh  lifeless  vine  on  the  wall  of 
the  cloister,  allowed  to  remain  there  only  as  a  curi- 
osity on  account  of  its  immense  age,  in  that  great 
season,  as  it  was  long  after  called,  clothed  itself 
with  fruit  once  more.     The  culture  of  the  grape 

15  greatly  increased.  The  sunlight  fell  for  the  first 
time  on  many  a  spot  of  deep  woodland  cleared  for 
vine-growing;  though  Denys,  a  lover  of  trees,  was 
careful  to  leave  a  stately  specimen  of  forest  growth 
here  and  there. 

20  When  his  troubles  came,  one  characteristic  that 
had  seemed  most  amiable  in  his  prosperity  was 
turned  against  him, —  a  fondness  for  oddly  grown 
or  even  misshapen,  yet  potentially  happy,  children ; 
for  odd  animals  also;  he   sympathised  with  them 

25  all,  was  skilful  in  healing  their  maladies,  saved  the 
hare  in  the  chase,  and  sold  his  mantle  to  redeem 
a  lamb  from  the  butcher.  He  taught  the  people 
not  to  be  afraid  of  the  strange,  ugly  creatures  which 
the  light  of  the  moving  torches   drew  from  their 

30  hiding-places,  nor  think  it  a  bad  omen  that  they 
approached.  He  tamed  a  veritable  wolf  to  keep 
him  company  like  a  dog.  It  was  the  first  of  many 
ambiguous  circumstances  about  him,  from  which. 


no  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

in  the  minds  of  an  increasing  number  of  people, 
a  deep  suspicion  and  hatred  began  to  define  itself. 
The  rich  bestiary,  then  compiling  in  the  library  of 
the  great  church,  became,  through  his  assistance, 
nothing  less  than  a  garden  of  Eden  —  the  garden  5 
of  Eden  grown  wild.  The  owl  alone  he  abhorred. 
A  little  later,  partly  as  if  in  revenge,  alone  of  all 
animals  it  clung  to  him,  haunting  him  persistently 
among  the  dusky  stone  towers;  when  grown  gen- 
tler than  ever  he  dared  not  kill  it.  He  moved  un- 10 
hurt  in  the  famous  menagerie  of  the  castle,  of  which 
the  common  people  were  so  much  afraid,  and  let 
out  the  lions,  themselves  timid  prisoners  enough, 
through  the  streets  during  the  fair.  The  incident 
suggested  to  the  somewhat  barren  pen-men  of  the  15 
day  a  "  morality "  adapted  from  the  old  pagan 
books, —  a  stage-play  in  which  the  God  of  Wine 
should  return  in  triumph  from  the  East.  In  the 
cathedral  square  the  pageant  was  presented,  amid 
an  intolerable  noise  of  every  kind  of  pipe-music,  20 
with  Denys  in  the  chief  part,  upon  a  gaily-painted 
chariot,  in  soft  silken  raiment  and,  for  headdress,  a 
strange  elephant  scalp  with  gilded  tusks. 

And  that  unrivalled  fairness  and  freshness  of  as- 
pect —  how  did  he  alone  preserve  it  untouched,  25 
through  the  wind  and  heat?  In  truth,  it  was  not 
by  magic,  as  some  said,  but  by  a  natural  simplicity 
in  his  living.  When  that  dark  season  of  his 
troubles  arrived  he  was  heard  begging  querulously 
one  wintry  night,  "  Give  me  wine,  meat ;  dark  wine  30 
and  brown  meat !  "  —  come  back  to  the  rude  door 
of  his  old  home  in  the  cliff-side.  Till  that  time  the 
great  vine-dresser  himself  drank  only  water ;  he  had 


DENYS  L'AUXERROIS  in 

lived  on  spring-water  and  fruit.  A  lover  of  fertility 
in  all  its  forms,  in  what  did  but  suggest  it,  he  was 
curious  and  penetrative  concerning  the  habits  of 
water,    and    had    the    secret    of   the    divining-rod. 

5  Long  before  it  came  he  could  detect  the  scent  of 
rain  from  afar,  and  would  climb  with  delight  to 
the  great  scaffolding  on  the  unfinished  tower  to 
watch  its  coming  over  the  thirsty  vine-land,  till  it 
rattled  on  the  great  tiled  roof  of  the  church  below ; 

lo  and  then,  throwing  off  his  mantle,  allow  it  to  bathe 
his  limbs  freely,  clinging  firmly  against  the  tem- 
pestuous wind  among  the  carved  imageries  of  dark 
stone. 

It  was  on  his  sudden  return  after  a  long  journey, 

15  (one  of  many  inexplicable  disappearances,)  coming 
back  changed  somewhat,  that  he  ate  flesh  for  the 
first  time,  tearing  the  hot,  red  morsels  vnth  his 
delicate  fingers  in  a  kind  of  wild  greed.  He  had 
fled  to  the  south  from  the  first  forbidding  days  of 

20  a  hard  winter  which  came  at  last.  At  the  great 
seaport  of  Marseilles  he  had  trafficked  with  sailors 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  from  Arabia  and  India, 
and  bought  their  wares,  exposed  now  for  sale,  to 
the  wonder  of  all,  at  the  Easter  fair  —  richer  wines 

25  and  incense  than  had  been  known  in  Auxerre,  seeds 
of  marvellous  new  flowers,  creatures  wild  and  tame, 
new  pottery  painted  in  raw  gaudy  tints,  the  skins 
of  animals,  meats  fried  with  unheard-of  condi- 
ments.    His  stall  formed  a  strange,  unwonted  patch 

30  of  colour,  found  suddenly  displayed  in  the  hot 
morning. 

The  artists  were  more  delighted  than  ever,  and 
frequented  his  company  in  the  little  manorial  habi- 


112  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

tation,  deserted  long  since  by  its  owners  and 
haunted,  so  that  the  eyes  of  many  looked  evil  upon 
it,  where  he  had  taken  up  his  abode,  attracted,  in 
the  first  instance,  by  its  rich  though  neglected  gar- 
den, a  tangle  of  every  kind  of  creeping,  vine-likes 
plant.  Here,  surrounded  in  abundance  by  the 
pleasant  materials  of  his  trade,  the  vine-dresser  as 
it  were  turned  pedant  and  kept  school  for  the 
various  artists,  w^io  learned  here  an  art  supplemen- 
tary to  their  own, —  that  gay  magic,  namely,  (artio 
or  trick,)  of  his  existence,  till  they  found  them- 
selves grown  into  a  kind  of  aristocracy,  like  veri- 
table gens  Hciir-de-liscs,  as  they  worked  together  for 
the  decoration  of  the  great  church  and  a  hundred 
other  places  beside.  And  yet  a  darkness  had  15 
grown  upon  him.  The  kind  creature  had  lost  some- 
thing of  his  gentleness.  Strange  motiveless  mis- 
deeds had  happened ;  and,  at  a  loss  for  other  causes, 
not  the  envious  only  would  fain  have  traced  the 
blame  to  Denys.  He  was  making  the  younger 20 
world  mad.  Would  he  make  himself  Count  of 
Auxerre?  The  lady  Ariane,  deserted  by  her  for- 
mer lover,  had  looked  kindly  upon  him ;  was  ready 
to  make  him  son-in-law  to  the  old  count  her  father, 
old  and  not  long  for  this  world.  The  wise  monk  25 
Hermes  bethought  him  of  certain  old  readings  in 
which  the  Wine-god,  whose  part  Denys  had  played 
so  well,  had  his  contrast,  his  dark  or  antipathetic 
side ;  was  like  a  double  creature  of  two  natures, 
difficult  or  impossible  to  harmonise.  And  in  truth  30 
the  much-prized  wine  of  Auxerre  has  itself  but  a 
fugitive  charm,  being  apt  to  sicken  and  turn  gross 
long  before  the  bottle  is  empty,  however  carefully 


DENYS  VAUXERROIS  113 

sealed  ;  as  it  goes  indeed,  at  its  best,  by  hard  names, 
among  those  who  grow  it,  such  as  Chainette  and 
Migraine. 

A    kind    of    degeneration,   of    coarseness  —  the 

5  coarseness  of  satiety  and  shapeless,  battered-out  ap- 
petite —  with  an  almost  savage  taste  for  carnivor- 
ous diet,  had  come  over  the  company.  A  rumour 
went  abroad  of  certain  women  who  had  drowned, 
in  mere  wantonness,  their  new-born  babes.     A  girl 

10  with  child  was  found  hanged  by  her  own  act  in  a 
dark  cellar.  Ah !  if  Denys  also  had  not  felt  him- 
self mad!  But  when  the  guilt  of  a  murder,  com- 
mitted with  a  great  vine-axe  far  out  among  the 
v;neyards,  was  attributed  vaguely  to  him,  he  could 

15  but  wonder  whether  it  had  been  indeed  thus,  and 
the  shadow  of  a  fancied  crime  abode  with  him. 
People  turned  against  their  favourite,  whose  former 
charms  must  now  be  counted  only  as  the  fascina- 
tions of  witchcraft.     It  was  as  if  the  wine  poured 

20  out  for  them  had  soured  in  the  cup.  The  golden 
age  had  indeed  come  back  for  a  while :  —  golden 
was  it,  or  gilded  only,  after  all?  and  they  were  too 
sick,  or  at  least  too  serious,  to  carry  through  their 
parts  In  it.     The  monk  Hermes  was  whimsically  re- 

25  minded  of  that  aftcr-thoiight  in  pagan  poetry,  of 
a  Wine-god  who  had  been  in  hell.  Denys  cer- 
tainly, with  all  his  flaxen  fairness  about  him,  was 
manifestly  a  sufferer.  At  first  he  thought  of  de- 
parting  secretly  to   some  other   place.     Alas !   his 

30  wits  were  too  far  gone  for  certainty  of  success  in 
the  attempt.     He  feared  to  be  brought  back  a  pris- 
oner.    Those  fat  years  were  over.     It  was  a  time 
of  scarcity.      The  working  people  might  not  eat 
8 


114  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

and  drink  of  the  good  things  they  had  helped  to 
store  away.  Tears  rose  in  the  eyes  of  needy  chil- 
dren, of  old  or  weak  people  like  children,  as  they 
woke  up  again  and  again  to  sunless,  frost-bound, 
ruinous  mornings;  and  the  little  hungry  creatures 5 
went  prowling  after  scattered  hedge-nuts  or  dried 
vine-tendrils.  ]\Iysterious,  dark  rains  prevailed 
throughout  the  summer.  The  great  ofifices  of  Saint 
John  were  fumbled  through  in  a  sudden  darkness 
of  unseasonable  storm,  which  greatly  damaged  the  ic 
carved  ornaments  of  the  church,  the  bishop  read- 
ing his  midday  Mass  by  the  light  of  the  littlfe  candle 
at  his  book.  And  then,  one  night,  the  night  which 
seemed  literally  to  have  swallowed  up  the  short- 
est day  in  the  year,  a  plot  was  contrived  by  certain  15 
persons  to  take  Denys  as  he  went  and  kill  him 
privately  for  a  sorcerer.  He  could  hardly  tell  how 
he  escaped,  and  found  himself  safe  in  his  earliest 
home,  the  cottage  in  the  cliff-side,  with  such  a  big 
fire  as  he  delighted  in  burning  upon  the  hearth.  20 
They  made  a  little  feast  as  well  as  they  could  for 
the  beautiful  hunted  creature,  with  abundance  of 
waxlights. 

And  at  last  the  clergy  bethought  themselves  of 
a  remedy  for  this  evil  time.  The  body  of  one  of  25 
the  patron  saints  had  lain  neglected  somewhere  un- 
der the  flagstones  of  the  sanctuary.  This  must  be 
piously  exhumed,  and  provided  with  a  shrine 
worthy  of  it.  The  goldsmiths,  the  jewellers  and 
lapidaries,  set  diligently  to  work,  and  no  long  time  30 
after,  the  shrine,  Hke  a  little  cathedral  with  portals 
and  tower  complete,  stood  ready,  its  chiselled  gold 
framing  panels  of  rock  crystal,  on  the  great  altar. 


DENYS  LAUXERROIS  iiS 

Many  bishops  arrived  with  King  Louis  the  Saint 
himself,  accompanied  by  his  mother,  to  assist  at 
the  search  for  and  disinterment  of  the  sacred  reUcs. 
In  their  presence,  the  Bishop  of  Auxerre,  in  vest- 
5  ments  of  deep  red  in  honour  of  the  reHcs,  blessed 
the  new  shrine,  according  to  the  office  De  bene- 
dictione  capsariim  pro  rcliquiis.  The  pavement  oi 
the  choir,  removed  amid  a  surging  sea  of  lugubri- 
ous chants,  all  persons  fasting,  discovered  as  if  it 

[o  had  been  a  battlefield  of  mouldering  human  re- 
mains. Their  odour  rose  plainly  above  the  plen- 
tiful clouds  of  incense,  such  as  was  used  in  the 
king's  private  chapel.  The  search  for  the  Saint 
himself  continued  in  vain  all  day  and  far  into  the 

15  night.  At  last  from  a  little  narrow  chest,  into 
which  the  remains  had  been  almost  crushed  to- 
gether, the  bishop's  red-gloved  hands  drew  the 
dwindled  body,  shrunken  inconceivably,  but  still 
with  every  feature  of  the  face  traceable  in  a  sudden 

20  oblique  ray  of  ghastly  dawn. 

That  shocking  sight,  after  a  sharp  fit  as  if  a 
demon  were  going  out  of  him,  as  he  rolled  on  the 
turf  of  the  cloister,  to  which  he  had  f^ed  alone  from 
the    suffocating    church    where    the    crowd    still 

25  awaited  the  Procession  of  the  relics  and  the  Mass 
De  reliqidis  qiice  continentiir  in  Ecclesiis,  seemed  in- 
deed to  have  cured  the  madness  of  Denys,  but  cer- 
tainly did  not  restore  his  gaiety.  He  was  left  a 
subdued,    silent,    melancholy    creature.      Turning 

30  now,  with  an  odd  revulsion  of  feeling,  to  gloomy 
objects,  he  picked  out  a  ghastly  shred  from  the 
common  bones  on  the  pavement  to  wear  about  his 
neck,  and  in  a  little  while  found  his  way  to  the 


Ii6  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

monks  of  Saint  Germain,  who  gladly  received  him 
into  their  workshop,  though  secretly,  in  fear  of  his 
foes. 

The  busy  tribe  of  variously  gifted  artists,  labour- 
ing rapidly   at  the  many  works  on  hand  for  the  5 
final  embellishment  of  the  cathedral  of  St.  Etienne, 
made  those  conventual  buildings  just  then  cheer- 
ful  enough  to  lighten   a   melancholy,   heavy  even 
as  that  of  our  friend  Denys.     He  took  his  place 
among  the  workmen,  a  conventual  novice ;  a  novice  la 
also  as  to  whatever  concerns  any  actual  handicraft. 
He    could    but   compound    sweet    incense   for   the 
sanctuary.     And  yet,  again  by  merely  visible  pres- 
ence, he  made  himself  felt  in  all  the  varied  exercise 
around  him  of  those  arts  which  address  themselves  15 
first  of  all  to  sight.     He  defined  unconsciously  a 
manner,  alike  of  feeling  and  expression,  to  those 
skilful  hands  at  work  day  by  day  with  the  chisel, 
the  pencil,  or  the  needle,  in  many  an  enduring  form 
of  exquisite  fancy.     In  three  successive  phases  or  20 
fashions  might  be  traced,  especially  in  the  carved 
work,  the  humours  he  had  determined.     There  was 
first  wild  gaiety,  exuberant  in  a  wreathing  of  life- 
like imageries,  from  which  nothing  really  present 
in  nature  was  excluded.    That,  as  the  soul  of  Denys  25 
darkened,  had  passed  into  obscure  regions  of  the 
satiric,  the  grotesque  and  coarse.     But  from  this 
time  there  was  manifest,  with  no  loss  of  power  or 
effect,   a  well-assured  seriousness,   somewhat  jeal- 
ous and  exclusive,  not  so  much  in  the  selection  of  30 
the  material  on  which  the  arts  were  to  work,  as  in 
the  precise  sort  of  expression  that  should  be  in- 
duced upon  it.     It  was  as  if  the  gay  old  pagan 


DENYS  UAUXERROIS  117 

world  had  been  blessed  in  some  way;  with  effects 
to  be  seen  most  clearly  in  the  rich  miniature  work 
of  the  manuscripts  of  the  capitular  library, —  a 
marvellous  Ovid  especially,  upon  the  pages  of 
5  which  those  old  loves  and  sorrows  seemed  to  come 
to  life  again  in  mediaeval  costume,  as  Denys,  in 
cowl  now  and  with  tonsured  head,  leaned  over  the 
painter,  and  by  a  kind  of  visible  sympathy,  often 
unspoken,  led  his  work,  rather  than  by  any  formal 

10  comment. 

Above  all,  there  was  a  desire  abroad  to  attain 
the  instruments  of  a  freer  and  more  various  sacred 
music  than  had  been  in  use  hitherto  —  a  music 
that  might  express  the  whole  compass  of  souls  now 

15  grown  to  manhood.  Auxerre,  indeed,  then  as  af- 
terwards, was  famous  for  its  liturgical  music.  It 
was  Denys,  at  last,  to  whom  the  thought  occurred 
of  combining  in  a  fuller  tide  of  music  all  the  instru- 
ments then  in  use.     Like  the  Wine-god  of  old,  he 

20  had  been  a  lover  and  patron  especially  of  the  mu- 
sic of  the  pipe,  in  all  its  varieties.  Here,  too,  there 
had  been  evident  those  three  fashions  or  "  modes  "  : 
—  first,  the  simple  and  pastoral,  the  homely  note 
of  the  pipe,  like  the  piping  of  the  wind  itself  from 

25  off  the  distant  fields ;  then,  the  wild,  savage  din, 
that  had  cost  so  much  to  quiet  people,  and  driven 
excitable  people  mad.  Now  he  would  compose  all 
this  to  sweeter  purposes ;  and  the  building  of  the 
first  organ  became  like  the  book  of  his  life ;  it  ex- 

30  panded  to  the  full  compass  of  his  nature,  in  its 
sorrow  and  delight.  In  long,  enjoyable  days  of 
wind  and  sun  by  the  river-side,  the  seemingly  half- 
witted  "  brother "   sought   and   found  the   needful 


!iS  SELECTIOi\S  tROM  PATER 

varieties  of  reed.  The  carpenters,  under  his  in- 
struction, set  up  the  great  wooden  passages  for 
the  thunder;  while  the  Httle  pipes  of  pasteboard 
simulated  the  sound  of  the  human  voice  singing 
to  the  victorious  notes  of  the  long  metal  trumpets.  5 
At  times  this  also,  as  people  heard  night  after  night 
those  wandering  sounds,  seem.ed  like  the  work  of 
a  madman,  though  they  awoke  sometimes  in  won- 
der at  snatches  of  a  new,  an  unmistakable  new 
music.  It  was  the  triumph  of  all  the  various  modes  10 
of  the  power  of  the  pipe,  tamed,  ruled,  united. 
Only,  on  the  painted  shutters  of  the  organ-case 
Apollo  with  his  lyre  in  his  hand,  as  lord  of  the 
strings,  seemed  to  look  askance  on  the  music  of 
the  reed,  in  all  the  jealousy  with  which  he  put  Mar- 15 
syas  to  death  so  cruelly. 

Meantime,  the  people,  even  his  enemies,  seemed 
to  have  forgotten  him.  Enemies,  in  truth,  they 
still  were,  ready  to  take  his  life  should  the  oppor- 
tunity come ;  as  he  perceived  when  at  last  he  ven-  20 
tured  forth  on  a  day  of  public  ceremony.  The 
bishop  was  to  pronounce  a  blessing  upon  the  foun- 
dations of  a  new  bridge,  designed  to  take  the  place 
of  the  ancient  Roman  bridge  which,  repaired  in  a 
thousand  places,  had  hitherto  served  for  the  chief  25 
passage  of  the  Yonne.  It  was  as  if  the  disturbing  of 
that  time-worn  masonry  let  out  the  dark  spectres 
of  departed  times.  Deep  down,  at  the* core  of  the 
central  pile,  a  painful  object  was  exposed  —  the 
skeleton  of  a  child,  placed  there  alive,  it  was  rightly  30 
surmised,  in  the  superstitious  belief  that,  by  way  of 
vicarious  substitution,  its  death  would  secure  the 
safety  of  all  who  should  pass  over.     There  were 


DENVS  LAUXERROIS  119 

some  who  found  themselves,  with  a  Httle  surprise, 
looking  round  as  if  for  a  similar  pledge  of  security 
in  their  new  undertaking.  It  was  just  then  that 
Denys  was  seen  plainly,  standing,  in  all  essential 
5  features  precisely  as  of  old,  upon  one  of  the  great 
stones  prepared  for  the  foundation  of  the  new  build- 
ing. For  a  moment  he  felt  the  eyes  of  the  people 
upon  him  full  of  this  strange  humour,  and  with 
characteristic  alertness,  after  a  rapid  gaze  over  the 

10  gray  city  in  its  broad  green  frame  of  vineyards,  best 
seen  from  this  spot,  flung  himself  down  into  the 
water  and  disappeared  from  view  where  the  stream 
flowed  most  swiftly  below  a  row  of  flour-mills. 
Some  indeed  fancied   they  had  seen  him  emerge 

rs  again  safely  on  the  deck  of  one  of  the  great  boats, 
loaded  with  grapes  and  wreathed  triumphantly  with 
flowers  like  a  floating  garden,  which  were  then 
bringing  down  the  vintage  from  the  country;  but 
generally  the  people  believed  their  strange  enemy 

20  now  at  last  departed  for  ever.  Denys  in  truth  was 
at  work  again  in  peace  at  the  cloister,  upon  his 
house  of  reeds  and  pipes.  At  times  his  fits  came 
upon  him  again ;  and  when  they  came,  for  his  cure 
he  would  dig  eagerly,  turned  sexton  now,  digging, 

25  by  choice,  graves  for  the  dead  in  the  various  church- 
yards of  the  town.  There  were  those  who  had  seen 
him  thus  employed  (that  form  seeming  still  to  carry 
the  sunlight  upon  it)  peering  into  the  darkness, 
while  his  tears  fell  sometimes  among  the  grim  relics 

30  his  mattock  had  disturbed. 

In  fact,  from  the  day  of  the  exhumation  of  the 
body  of  the  Saint  in  the  great  church,  he  had  had 
a  wonderful  curiosity  for  such  objects,  and  one  win- 


120  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

try  day  bethought  him  of  removing  the  body  of 
his  mother  from  the  unconsecrated  ground  in  which 
it  lay,  that  he  might  bury  it  in  the  cloister  near 
the  spot  where  he  now  worked.  At  twilight  he 
came  over  the  frozen  snow.  As  he  passed  through  5 
the  stony  barriers  of  the  place  the  world  around 
seemed  curdled  to  the  centre  —  all  but  himself, 
fighting  his  way  across  it,  turning  now  and  then 
right-about  from  the  persistent  wind,  which  dealt 
so  roughly  with  his  blonde  hair  and  the  purple  man- 10 
tie  whirled  about  him.  The  bones,  hastily  gath- 
ered, he  placed,  awfully  but  without  ceremony,  in 
a  hollow  space  prepared  secretly  within  the  grave 
of  another. 

Meantime  tlie  winds  of  his  organ  were  ready  to  115 
blow;  and  with  difficulty  he  obtained  grace  from 
the  Chapter  for  a  trial  of  its  powers  on  a  notable 
public  occasion,  as  follows.     A  singular  guest  was 
expected   at   Auxerre.      In   recompense   for   some 
service  rendered  to  the  Chapter  in  times  gone  by,  20 
the  Sire  de  Chastellux  had  the  hereditary  dignity 
of  a  canon  of  the  church.     On  the  day  of  his  recep- 
tion he  presented  himself  at  the  entrance  of  the 
choir  in  surplice  and  amice,  worn  over  the  military 
habit.     The  old  count  of  Chastellux  was  lately  dead,  25 
and  the  heir  had  announced  his  coming,  according 
to    custom,    to    claim    his    ecclesiastical    privilege. 
There  had  been  long  feud  between  the  houses  of 
Chastellux  and  Auxerre;  but  on  this  happy  occa- 
sion an  ofifer  of  peace  came  with  a  proposal  for  the  30 
hand  of  the  Lady  Ariane. 

The  goodly  young  man  arrived,  and,   duly  ar- 
rayed, was  received  into  his  stall  at  vespers,   the 


DENYS  VAUXERROIS  121 

bishop  assisting.  It  was  then  that  the  people  heard 
the  music  of  the  organ,  rolling  over  them  for  the 
first  time,  with  various  feelings  of  delight.  But 
the  performer  on  and  author  of  the  instrument  was 
5  forgotten  in  his  work,  and  there  was  no  reinstate- 
ment of  the  former  favourite.  The  religious  cere- 
mony was  followed  by  a  civic  festival,  in  which 
Auxerre  welcomed  its  future  lord.  The  festival 
would  end  at  nightfall  with  a  somewhat  rude,  popu- 

ro  lar  pageant,  in  which  the  person  of  Winter  would 
be  hunted  blindfold  through  the  streets.  It  was 
the  sequel  to  that  old  stage-play  of  the  Return  from 
the  East  in  which  Denys  had  been  the  central  fig- 
ure.    The  old  forgotten  player  saw  his  part  before 

15  him,  and,  as  if  mechanically,  fell  again  into  the 
chief  place,  monk's  dress  and  all.  It  might  re- 
store his  popularity :  who  could  tell  ?  Hastily  he 
donned  the  ashen-gray  mantle,  the  rough  haircloth 
about  the  throat,  and  went  through  the  preliminary 

2o  play.  And  it  happened  that  a  point  of  the  hair- 
cloth scratched  his  lip  deeply,  with  a  long  trickling 
of  blood  upon  the  chin.  It  was  as  if  the  sight  of 
blood  transported  the  spectators  with  a  kind  of  mad 
rage,  and  suddenly  revealed  to  them  the  truth.   The 

25  pretended  hunting  of  the  unholy  creature  became 
a  real  one,  which  brought  out,  in  rapid  increase, 
men's  evil  passions.  The  soul  of  Denys  was  al- 
ready at  rest,  as  his  body,  now  borne  along  in 
front  of  the  crowd,  was  tossed  hither  and  thither, 

30  torn  at  last  limb  from  limb.  The  men  stuck  lit- 
tle shreds  of  his  flesh,  or,  failing  that,  of  his  torn 
raiment,  into  their  caps :  the  women  lending  their 
long  hairpins  for  the  purpose.    The  monk  Hermes 


122  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

sought  in  vain  next  day  for  any  remains  of  the 
body  of  his  friend.  Only,  at  mghtfall,  the  heart  of 
Denys  was  brought  to  him  by  a  stranger,  still  en- 
tire. It  must  long  since  have  mouldered  into  dust 
under  the  stone,  marked  with  a  cross,  where  he  5 
buried  it  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  cathedral  aisle. 

So  the  figure  in  the  stained  glass  explained  itself. 
To  me,  Denys  seemed  to  have  been  a  real  resident 
at  Auxerre.  On  days  of  a  certain  atmosphere, 
when  the  trace  of  the  Middle  Age  comes  out,  like  10 
old  marks  in  the  stones  in  rainy  w^eather,  I  seemed 
actually  to  have  seen  the  tortured  figure  there  — 
to  have  m.et  Denys  I'Auxerrois  in  the  streets. 

(From  Macmillait's   Magazine,    May,    1886.        Imaginary 
Portraits,   1887.) 


STYLE  125 

perfect  mastery  of  the  relative  pronoun.  It  might 
have  been  foreseen  that,  in  the  rotations  of  mind, 
the  province  of  poetry  in  prose  would  find  its  as- 
sertor;  and,  a  century  after  Dryden,  amid  very  dif- 
5  ferent  intellectual  needs,  and  with  the  need  therefore 
of  great  modifications  in  literary  form,  the  range 
of  the  poetic  force  in  literature  was  effectively  en- 
larged by  Wordsworth.  The  true  distinction  be- 
tween prose  and  poetry  he  regarded  as  the  almost 

ro  technical  or  accidental  one  of  the  absence  or  pres- 
ence of  metrical  beauty,  or,  say !  metrical  restraint ; 
and  for  him  the  opposition  came  to  be  between 
verse  and  prose  of  course ;  but,  as  the  essential 
dichotomy  in  this  matter,  between  imaginative  and 

15  unimaginative  writing,  parallel  to  De.jQuincey's  dis- 
tinction between  "  the  literature  of  powei  and  the 
literature  of  knowledge,"  in  the  former  of  which  the 
composer  gives  us  not  fact,  but  his  peculiar  sense 
of  fact,  whether  past  or  present. 

;!o  Dismissing  then,  under  sanction  of  Wordsworth, 
that  harsher  opposition  of  poetry  to  prose,  as 
savouring  in  fact  of  the  arbitrary  psychology  of  the 
last  century,  and  with  it  the  prejudice  that  there 
can  be  but  one  only  beauty  of  prose  style,  Lpro£Ose 

25  here  to  point  out  certain  qualities  of  all  literature 
as  a  fine  art,  which,  if  they  apply  to  the  literature 
of  fact,  apply  still  more  to  the  literature  of  the  im- 
aginative sense  of  fact,  while  they  apply  indiffer- 
ently to  verse  and  prose,  so  far  as  either  is  really 

30  imaginative  —  certain  conditions  of  true  art  in  both 
alike,  which  conditions  may  also  contain  in  them 
the  secret  of  the  proper  discrimination  and  guard- 
ianship of  the  peculiar  exceljences  of  either. 


126  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

The  line  between  fact  and  something  quite  dif- 
ferent from  external  fact  is,  indeed,  hard  to  draw. 
In   Pascal,  for  instance,  in  the  persuasive  writers 
generally,  how  difficult  to  define  the  point  where,  . 
from  time  to  time,  argument  which,  if  it  is  to  be  5 
worth   anything   at   all,    must   consist   of   facts  or  , 
groups  of  facts,  becomes  a  pleading  —  a  theorem  no  , 
longer,  but  essentially  an  appeal  to  the  reader  to 
catch  the  writer's  spirit,  to  think  with  him,  if  one 
can  or  will  —  an  expression  no  longer  of  fact  but  ic 
of  his  sense  of  it,  his  peculiar  intuition  of  a  world, 
prospective,   or  discerned  below  the  faulty  condi- 
tions of  the  present,  in  either  case  changed  some- 
what from  the  actual  world.     In  science,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  history  so  far  as  it  conforms  to  sci-  15 
entific  rule,  we  have  a  literary  domain  where  the 
imagination  may  be  thought  to  be  always  an  in- 
truder.    And  as,  in  all  science,  the  functions  of  lit- 
erature reduce  themselves  eventually  to  the  tran- 
scribing of  fact,  so  all  the  excellences  of  literary  20 
form  in  regard  to  science  are  reducible  to  various 
kinds  of  painstaking;  this  good  quality  being  in- 
volved in  all  "  skilled  work  "  whatever,  in  the  draft- 
ing of  an  act  of  parliament,  as  in  sewing.     Yet  here 
again,  the  writer's  sense  of  fact,  in  history  especi-25 
ally,  and  in  all  those  complex  subjects  which  do 
but  lie  on  the  borders  of  science,  will  still  take  the 
place  of  fact,  in  various  degrees.     Your  historian, 
for    instance,    with    absolutely    truthful    intention, 
amid  the  multitude  of  facts  presented  to  him  must  30 
needs  select,  and  in  selecting  assert  something  of 
his  own  humour,  something  that  comes  not  of  the 
world  without  but  of  a  vision  within.     So  Gibbon 


STYLE  127 

moulds   his   unwieldy   material   to   a  preconceived 
view.       Livy,    Tacitus,    Michelet,    moving   full    of 
poignant  sensibility  amid  the  records  of  the  past, 
each,  after  his  own  sense,  modifies  —  who  can  tell 
5  where  and  to  what  degree  ?  —  and  becomes  some- 
thing else  than  a  transcriber ;  each,  as  he  thus  modi- 
fies, passing  into  the  domain  of  art  proper.     For 
just  in  proportion  as  the  writer's  aim,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  comes  to  be  the  transcribing,  not 
10  of  the  world,  not  of  mere  fact,  but  of  his  sense  of 
it,  he  becomes  an  artist,  his  work  fine  art ;  and  good 
art  (as  I  hope  ultimately  to  show)  in  proportion  to 
the  truth  of  his  presentment  of  that  sense ;  as  in 
those  humbler  or  plainer  functions  of  literature  also, 
15  truth  —  truth  to  bare  fact,  there  —  is  the  essence 
of  such  artistic  quality  as  they  may  have.     Truth ! 
there  can  be  no  merit,  no  craft  at  all,  without  that. 
"And  further,  alU.be^jIJt^^j^JlLJth^Jong_run  only  fine- 
ness of  truth,  or  what  we  call  expression,"  the  finer/ 
20  accommodation  of  speech  to  that  vision  within.      ( 
—  The  transcript  of  his  sense  of  fact  rather  than 
the    fact,    as    being    preferable,    pleasanter,    more 
beautiful  to  the  writer  himself.     In  literature,  as  in 
every  other  product  of  human  skill,  in  the  mould- 
25  ing  of  a  bell  or  a  platter  for  instance,  wherever  this 
sense  asserts  itself,  wherever  the  producer  so  modi-" 
fies  his  work  as,  over  and  above  its  primary  use 
or  intention,  to   make   it   pleasing   (to  himself,   of 
course,  in  the  first  instance)  there,  ''  fine  "  as  op- 
30  posed  to  merely  serviceable  art,  exists.     Literary 
art,  that  is,  like  all  art  which  is  in  any  way  imita- 
tive or  reproductive  of  fact  —  form,  or  colour,  or 
incident  —  is  the  representation  of  such  fact  as  con- 


128  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

nected  with   soul,  of   a  specific  personality,   in  its 
preferences,  its  volition  and  power. 

Such  is  the  matter  of  imaginative  or  artistic  lit- 
erature —  this  transcript,  not  of  mere  fact,  but  of 
fact  in  its  infinite  variety,  as  modified  by  human  5 
preference  in  all  its  infinitely  varied  forms.  It  will 
f  be  good  literary  art  not  because  it  is  brilliant  or 
sober,  or  rich,  or  impulsive,  or  severe,  but  just  in 
proportion  as  its  representation  of  that  sense,  that 
soul-fact,  is  true,  verse  being  only  one  department  10 
1  of  such  literature,  and  imaginative  prose,  it  may  be 
'  thought,  being  the  special  art  of  the  modern  world. 
That  imaginative  prose  should  be  the  special  and 
opportune  art  of  the  "modern  world  results  from  two 
important  facts  about  the  latter:  first,  the  chaotic  15 
variety  and  complexity  of  its  interests,  making  the 
intellectual  issue,  the  really  master  currents  of  the 
present  time  incalculable  —  a  condition  of  mind  lit- 
tle susceptible  of  the  restraint  proper  to  verse  form, 
'  so  that  the  most  characteristic  verse  of  the  nine-  20 
^  teenth  century  has  been  lawless  verse  ;  and  secondly, 
an  all-pervading  naturalism,  a  curiosity  about 
everything  whatever  as  it  really  is,  involving  a  cer- 
tain humility  of  attitude,  cognate  to  what  must,  af- 
ter all,  be  the  less  ambitious  form  of  literature.  And  25 
prose  thus  asserting  itself  as  the  special  and  privi- 
leged artistic  faculty  of  the  present  day,  will  be, 
however  critics  may  try  to  narrow  its  scope,  as 
varied  in  its  excellence  as  humanity  itself  reflecting 
on  the  facts  of  its  latest  experience  —  an  instrument  30 
of  many  stops,  meditative,  observant,  descriptive, 
eloquent,  analytic,  plaintive,  fervid.  Its  beauties 
will  be  not  exclusively  "  pedestrian  " ;  it  will  exert; 


X 


'  STYLE  129 

in  due  measure,  all  the  varied  charms  of  poetry, 
down  to  the  rhythm  which,  as  in  Cicero,  or  Miche- 
let,  or  Newman,  at  their  best,  gives  its  musical 
value  to  every  syllable. 
5  The  literary  artist  is  of  necessity  a  scholar,  and  in 
what  he  proposes  to  do  will  have  in  mind,  first  of 
all,  the  scholar  and  the  scholarly  conscience  —  the 
male  conscience  in  this  matter,  as  we  must  think 
it,  under  a  system  of  education  which   still  to  so 

10  large  an  extent  limits  real  scholarship  to  men.  In 
his  self-criticism,  he  supposes  always  that  sort  of 
reader  who  will  go  (full  of  eyes)  warily,  consider- 
ately, though  without  consideration  for  him,  over 
the  ground  which  the  female  conscience  traverses 

15  so  lightly,  so  amiably.  For  the  material  in  which 
he  works  is  no  more  a  creation  of  his  own  than  the 
sculptor's  marble.  Product  of  a  myriad  various" 
minds  and  contending  tongues,  compact  of  obscure 
and   minute   association,   a   language   has   its   own 

20  abundant  and  often  recondite  laws,  in  the  habitual 
and  summary  recognition  of  which  scholarship  con- 
sists. A  writer,  full  of  a  matter  he  is  before  all 
things  anxious  to  express,  may  think  of  those  laws, 
the   limitations   of  vocabulary,   structure,    and   the 

25  like,  as  a  restriction,  but  if  a  real  artist  will  find  in 
them  an  opportunity.  His  punctilious  observance 
of  the  proprieties  of  his  medium  will  diffuse  through 
all  he  writes  a  general  air  of  sensibility,  of  refined 
usage.      _E-vclusioncs    dchitcc    natnrcc  —  the    exclu- 

30  sions,   or  rejections,   which   nature  demands  —  we 

know  how  large  a  part  these  play,   according  to 

Bacon,  In  the  science  of  nature.     In  a  somewhat; 

changed  sense,  we  might  say  that  the  art  of  the 

9 


130  SELECTIONS  PROM  PATER 

scholar  is  summed  up  in  the  observance  of  those 
rejections  demanded  by  the  nature  of  his  medium, 
the  material  he  must  use.  Alive  to  the  value  of  an 
atmosphere  in  which  every  term  finds  its  utmost 
degree  of  expression,  and  with  all  the  jealousy  of  a  5 
lover  of  words,  he  will  resist  a  constant  tendency  on 
the  part  of  the  majority  of  those  who  use  them  to« 
efface  the  distinctions  of  language,  the  facility  of 
writers  often  reinforcing  in  this  respect  the  work  of 
the  vulgar.  He  will  feel  the  obligation  not  of  the  10 
laws  only,  but  of  those  affinities,  avoidances,  those 
mere  preferences,  of  his  language,  which  through 
the  associations  of  literary  history  have  become  a 
part  of  its  nature,  prescribing  the  rejection  of  many 
a  neology,  many  a  license,  many  a  gipsy  phrase  15 
which  might  present  itself  as  actually  expressive. 
His  appeal,  again,  is  to  the  scholar,  who  has  great 
experience  in  literature,  and  will  show  no  favour 
to  short-cuts,  or  hackneyed  illustration,  or  an  affec- 
tation of  learning  designed  for  the  unlearned.  20 
Hence  a  contention,  a  sense  of  self-restraint  and 
renunciation,  having  for  the  susceptible  reader  the 
effect  of  a  challenge  for  minute  consideration ;  the 
attention  of  the  writer,  in  every  minutest  detail, 
being  a  pledge  that  it  is  worth  the  reader's  while  25 
to  be  attentive  to,  that  the  writer  is  dealing  scru- 
pulously with  his  instrument,  and,  therefore,  indi- 
rectly, with  the  reader  himself  also,  that  he  has  the 
science  of  the  instrument  he  plays  on,  perhaps,  af- 
ter all,  with  a  freedom  which  in  such  case  will  be  30 
the  freedom  of  a  master. 

For  meanwhile,  braced  only  by  those  restraints, 
he  is  really  vindicating  his  liberty  in  the  making  of 


STYLE  131 

a  vocabulary,  an  entire  system  of  composition,  for  \ 
himself,  his  own  true  manner ;  and  when  we  speak 
of  the  manner  of  a  true  master  we  mean  what  is 
essential    in    his    art.       Pedantry    being    only    the 

5  scholarship  of  le  cuistre  (we  have  no  English  equiva- 
lent) he  is  no  pedant,  and  does  but  show  his  intelli- 
gence of  the  rules  of  language  in  his  freedoms  with 
it,  addition  or  expansion,  which  like  the  spontanei- 
ties of  manner  in  a  well-bred  person  will  still  further 

10  illustrate  good  taste. — Tliexight  vo&a4»utey  !  Trans- 
lators have  not  invariably  seen  how  all-important 
that  is  in  the  work  of  translation,  driving  for  the 
most  part  at  idiom  or  construction ;  whereas,  if  the 
original  be  first-rate,  one's  first  care  should  be  with 

15  its  elementary  particles,  Plato,  for  instance,  being 
often  reproducible  by  an  exact  following,  with  no 
variation  in  structure,  of  word  after  word,  as  the 
pencil  follows  a  drawing  under  tracing-paper,  so 
only  each  word  or  syllable  be  not  of  false  colour, 

20  to  change  my  illustration  a  little. 

Well !  that  is  because  any  writer  worth  translating 
at  all  has  winnowed  and  searched  through  his  vo- 
cabulary, is  conscious  of  the  words  he  would  select 
in  systematic  reading  of  a  dictionary,  and  still  more 

25  of  the  words  he  would  reject  were  the  dictionary 
other  than  Johnson's ;  and  doing  this  with  his  pe- 
culiar sense  of  the  world  ever  in  view,  in  search 
of  an  instrument  for  the  adequate  expression  of 
that,  he  begets  a  vocabularv  faithful  to  the  colour-    • 

3oJn^_of   his   own   spirjt^jind   in   the  strictest   sense    1 

^  original.  That  living  authority  which  language  ' 
needs  lies,  in  truth,  in  its  scholars,  who  recognising  / 
always  that  every  language  possesses  a  genius,  a    L_ 


132  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

'  very  fastidious  genius,  of  its  own,  expand  at  once 
.  and  purify  its  very  elements,  which  must  needs 
^  change  along  ,with_tjie  changing  thoughts__£iL  living 
people.  Ninety  years  ago,  for  instance,  great  men- 
tal force,  certainly,  was  needed  by  Wordsworth,  to  5 
break  through  the  consecrated  poetic  associations 
of  a  century,  and  speak  the  language  that  was  his, 
that  was  to  become  in  a  measure  the  language  of 
the  next  generation.  But  he  did  it  with  the  tact  of 
a  scholar  also.  English,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  10 
past,  has  been  assimilating  the  phraseology  of  pic- 
torial art ;  for  half  a  century,  the  phraseology  of  the 
great  German  metaphysical  movement  of  eighty 
years  ago ;  in  part  also  the  language  of  mystical 
theology:  and  none  but  pedants  w411  regret  a  great  15 
consequent  increase  of  its  resources.  For  many 
years  to  come  its  enterprise  may  well  lie  in  the 
naturalisation  of  the  vocabulary  of  science,  so  only 
it  be  under  the  eye  of  a  sensitive  scholarship  —  in 
a  liberal  naturalisation  of  the  ideas  of  science  too,  20 

ifor  after  all  the  chief  stimulus  of  good  style  is  to 
possess  a  full,  rich,  complex  matter  to  grapple  with.    • 
The  literary  artist,  therefore,  will  be  well  aware  of 
I  physical  science ;  science  also  attaining,  in  its  turn, 
its  true  literary  ideal.     And  then,  as  the  scholar  is  25 
nothing  without  the  historic  sense,  he  will  be  apt 
^    :  to  restore  not   really  obsolete   or  really  worn-out 
v^    '  words,   but  the   finer   edge   of  words  still   in   use: 
I  I  ascertain,  communicate,  discover  —  words  like  these 
)  ^  j  it  has  been  part  of  our  '*  business  "  to  misuse.    And  30 
I  still,  as  language  was  made  for  man,  he  will  be  no 
authority  for  correctnesses  which,  limiting  freedom 
of  utterance,  were  yet  but  accidents  in  their  origin ; 


STYLE  133 

as  if  one  vowed  not  to  say  "  itsj'  which  ought  to 
have  been  in  Shakespeare;  ''his''  and  ''hers;'  for 
inanimate  objects,  being  but  a  barbarous  and  really 
inexpressive  survival.       Yet  we  have  known  many 

5  things  like  this.  Racy  Saxon  monosyllables,  close  to 
us  as  touch  and  sight,  he  will  intermix  readily  with 
those  long,  savoursome,  Latin  words,  rich  in  "  sec- 
ond intention."  In  this  late  day  certainly,  no 
critical  process  can  be  conducted  reasonably  with- 

lo  out  eclecticism.  Of  such  eclecticism  we  have  a 
justifying  example  in  ojie  of  the  first  poets  of  our 
time.  How  illustrative  of  monosyllabic  efifect,  of 
sonorous  Latin,  of  the  phraseology  of  science,  of 
metaphysic,  of  colloquialism  even,  are  the  writings 

15  of    Tennyson ;    yet    with    what    a    fine,    fastidious 

scholarship  throughout !  ^ 

A  scholar  writing  for  the   scholarly,  he  will  of 

course  leave  something  to  the  willing  intelligence 

of  his  reader.  "  To  go  preach  to  the  first  passer-by," 

20  says  ]\lontaigne,  "  to  become  tutor  to  the  ignorance 
of  the  first  I  meet,  is  a  thing  I  abhor ;  "  a  thing,  in 
fact,  naturally  distressing  to  the  scholar,  who  will 
therefore  ever  be  shy  of  offering  uncomplimentary 
assistance  to  the  reader's  wit.     To  really  strenuous 

25  minds  there  is  a  pleasurable  stimulus  in  the  chal- 
lenge for  a  continuous  effort  on  their  part,  to  be 
rewarded  by  securer  and  more  intimate  grasp  of  the 
author's  sense.  Self-restraint,  a  skilful  economy  of 
means,  \asccsis,  that  too  has  a  beauty  of  its  own ; 

30  and  for  the  reader  supposed  there  will  be  an 
aesthetic  satisfaction  in  th^t  frugal  closeness  of  style 
which  makes  the  most  of  a  word,  in  the  exaction 
from  every  sentence  of  a  precise  ^relief,  in  the  just 


*I34  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

spacing  out  of  word  to  thought,   in   the  logically 
^    filled   space   connected  always   with   the   delightful 
sense  of  difficulty  overcome. 

Different   classes   of  persons,  at  different  times, 
make,  of  course,  very  various  demands  upon  litera-  5 
ture.     Still,  scholars,  I  suppose,  and  not  only  schol- 
ars, but  all  disinterested  lovers  of  books,  will  always 
look  to  it,  as  to  all  other  fine  art,  for  a  refuge,  a 
sort   of   cloistral   refuge,   from   a   certain   vulgarity 
in  the  actual  world.     A  perfect  poem  like  Lycidas,  10 
a  perfect  fiction  like  Esmond,  the  perfect  handling 
of  a  theory  like  Newman's  Idea  of  a  University,  has 
for  them  something  of  the  uses  of  a  religious  "  re- 
^^eat."       Here,    then,   with   a  view   to  the  central 
need  of  a  select  few,  those  "  men  of  a  finer  thread  "  15 
who  have  formed  and  maintain  the  literary  ideal, 
everything,  every  component  element,  will  have  un- 
dergone exact  trial,  and,  above  all,  there  will  be 
no  uncharacteristic  or  tarnished  or  vulgar  decora- 
tion, permissible  ornament  being  for  the  most  part  20 
structural,  or  necessary.     As  the  painter  in  his  pic- 
ture, so  the  artist  in  his  book,  aims  at  the  produc- 
tion by  honourable  artifice  of  a  peculiar  atmospher>;. 
"  The  artist,"  says  Schiller,  "  may  be  known  rather 
by  what  he  omits'';  and  in  literature,  too,  the  true 25 
artist  may  be  best  recognised  by  his  tact  of  omis- 
sion.    For  to  the  grave  reader  words  too  are  grave ; 
and  the  ornamental  word,  the  figure,  the  accessory 
form   or  colour  or  reference,  is  rarely  content  to 
die  to  thought  precisely  at  the  right  moment,  but  30 
will  inevitably  linger  awhile,  stirring  a  long  "  brain- 
wave "  behind  it  of  perhaps  quite  alien  associations. 
Just  there,  it  may  be,  is  the  detrimental  tendency 


STYLE  135 

of  the  sort  of  scholarly  attentiveness  of  mind  I  am  i 
recommending.  But  the  true  artist  allows  for  it. 
He  will  remember  that,  as  the  very  word  ornament 
indicates  what  is  in  itself  non-essential,  so  the  "  one 
5  beauty  "  of  all  literary  style  is  of  its  very  essence, 
and  independent,  in  prose  and  verse  alike,  of  all 
removable  decoration;  that  it  may  exist  in  its  fullest 
lustre,  as  in  Flaubert's  Madame  Bovary,  for  in- 
stance, or  in  Stendhal's  Le  Rouge  ct  Le  Noir,  in  a 

10  composition  utterly  unadorned,  with  hardly  a  single 
suggestion  of  visibly  beautiful  things.  Parallel,  al- 
lusion, the  allusive  way  generally,  the  flowers  in 
the  garden :  —  he  knows  the  narcotic  force  of 
these  upon  the  negligent  intelligence  to  which  any 

15  diversion,  literally,  is  welcome,  any  vagrant  intruder, 
because  one  can  go  wandering  away  with  it  from 
the  immediate  subject.  Jealous,  if  he  have  a  really 
quickening  motive  within,  of  all  that  does  not  hold 
directly  to  that,  of  the  facile,   the   otiose,   he  will 

20  never  depart  from  the  strictly  pedestrian  process, 
unless  he  gains  a  ponderable  something  thereby. 
Even  assured  of  its  congruity,  he  will  still  ques- 
tion its  serviceableness.  Is  it  worth  while,  can  we 
afford,  to  attend  to  just  that,  to  just  that  figure 

25  or  literary  reference,  just  then  ?  —  Surplusage  !  he 
will  dread  that,  as  the  runner  on  his  muscles.  For 
in  truth  all  art  does  but  ^consist  in  the  removal  of 
surplusage,  from  the  last  finish  of  the  gem-en- 
graver blowing  away  the  last  particle  of  invisible 

30  dust,  back  to  the  earliest  divjnation  of  the  finished 
work  to  be,  lying  somewhere,  according  to  Michel- 
angelo's fancy,  in  the  rough-hewn  block  of  stone. 
And  what  applies  to  figure  or  flower  must  be 


y 


136  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

understood  of  all  other  accidental  or  removable  or- 
naments of  writing  whatever;  and  not  of  specific 
ornament  only,  but  of  all  that  latent  colour  and 
imagery  which  language  as  such  carries  in  it.  A 
lover  of  words  for  their  own  sake,  to  whom  noth-  5 
ing  about  them  is  unimportant,  a  minute  and  con- 
stant observer  of  their  physiognomy,  he  will  be  on 
the  alert  not  only  for  obviously  mixed  metaphors 
of  course,  but  for  the  metaphor  that  is  mixed  in 
all  our  speech,  though  a  rapid  vise  may  involve  no  10 

i cognition  of  it. [^Currently  recognising  the  incident, 
the   colour,   the  physical    elements  or   particles   in 
wordsjlike  absorb,  consider,  extract,  to  take  the  first 
that  occurj[^lie  will  avail  himself  of  them,  as  further 
adding  to  the  resources  of  expression.     The   ele-  ifi 
mentary  particles  of  language  will  be  realised  as 
colour  and  light  and  shade  through  his  scholarly 
living  in  the  full  sense  of  themj     Still  opposing  the    - 
constant    degradation    of   language   by    those   who 
use  it  carelessly,  he  will  not  treat  coloured  glass  20 
^    as  if  it  were  clear ;  and  while  half  the  world  is  using 
figure  unconsciously,  w^ll  be  fully  aware  not  only 
of  all  that  latent  figurative  texture  In  speech,  but 
of  the  vague,  lazy,  half-formed  personification  —  a 
rhetoric,  depressing,  and  worse  than  nothing  be-2s 
cause   it  has   no  really   rhetorical   motive  —  which 
plays  so  large  a  part  there,  and,  as  in  the  case  of 
more  ostentatious  ornament,  scrupulously  exact  of 
it,  from  syllable  to  syllable,  its  precise  value. 

So  far  I  have  been  speaking  of  certain  conditions  30 
of  the  literary  art  arising  out  of  the  medium  or  ma- 
terial in  or  upon  which  it  works,  the  essential  quali- 
ties of  language  and  its  aptitudes  for   contingent 


STYLE  137 

ornamentation,  matters  which  define  scholarship  as 
science  and  good  taste  respectively.  They  are  both 
subservient  to  a  more  intimate  quality  of  good 
style :  more  intimate,  as  coming  nearer  to  the  artist 
5  himself.  The  otiose,  the  facile,  surplusage :  why 
are  these  abhorrent  to  the  true  literary  artist,  except 
because,  in  literary  as  in  all  other  art,  structure  is 
all-important,  felt,  or  painfully  missed,  everywhere? 
— •  that    architectural    conception    of    work,    which 

lo  foresees  the  end  in  the  beginning  and  never  loses 
sight  of  it,  and  in  every  part  is  conscious  of  all  the 
rest,  till  the  last  sentence  does  but,  with  undimin- 
ished vigour,  unfold  and  justify  the  first  —  a  condi- 
tion of  literary  art,  which,  in  contradistinction  to 

15  another  quality  of  the  artist  himself,  to  be  spoken 
of  later,  I  shall  call  the  necessity  of  uiind  in  style. 

An   acute  "plTitn5op!iicar"'wfit5rrA^ 
Mansel  (a  writer  whose  works  illustrate  the  liter- 
ary beauty  there  may  be  in  closeness,  and  with  obvi- 

>'.o  ous  repression  or  economy  of  a  fine  rhetorical  gift) 
wrote  a  book,  of  fascinating  precision  in  a  very 
obscure  subject,  to  show  that  all  the  technical  laws 
of  logic  are  but  means  of  securing,  in  each  and  all 
of  its  apprehensions,  the  unity,  the  strict  identity 

25  with  itself,  of  the  apprehending  mind.    All  the  laws 
of  good  writing  aim  at  a  similar  unity  or  identity  | 
of  the  mind  in  all  the  processes  by  which  the  word 
is  associated  to  its  import.     The  term  is  right,  and 
has  its  essential  beauty,  when  it  becomes,  in  a  man- 

30  ner,  what  it  signifies,  as  with  the  names  of  simple 
sensations.  To  give  the  phrase,  the  sentence,  the 
structural  member,  the  entire  composition,  song,  or 
essay,  a  similar  unity  with  its  subject  and  with  it-^ 


\/ 


^ 


138  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

self :  —  style  is  in  the  right  way  when  it  tends  to- 
wards that.  All  depends  upon  the  original  unity, 
the  vital  wholeness  and  (identity,  of  the  initiatory 
apprehension  or  view.  So  much  is  true  of  all  art, 
which  therefore  requires  always  its  logic,  its  com- 5 
prehensive  reason  —  insight,  foresight,  retrospect, 
in  simultaneous  action  —  true,  most  of  all,  of  the 
literary-  art^  as  being  of  all  the  arts  most  closely 
c'ognate  to  the  abstract  intelligence.  Such  logical 
coherency  may  be  evidenced  not  merely  in  the  lines  ic 
of  composition  as  a  whole,  but  in  the  choice  of  a 
single  word,  while  it  by  no  means  interferes  with, 
\but  may  even  prescribe,  much  variety,  in  the  build- 
Ung  of  the  sentence  for  instance,  or  in  the  manner, 
argumentative,!  descriptive,  discursive,  of  this  or  15 
that  part  or  member  of  the  entire  design.  The 
blithe,  crisp  sentence,  decisive  as  a  child's  expres- 
sion of  its  needs,  may  alternate  with[the  long-con- 
tending, victoriously  intricate  sentence  Qthe  sen- 
tence, born  with  the  integrity  of  a  single  word,  re- 20 
lievingfthe  sort  of  sentence  in  which,  if  you  look 
closely ,'~you  can  see  much  contrivance,  much  ad- 
justment, to  bring  a  highly  qualified  matter  into 
Icompass  at  one  view.  For  the  literary  architecture, 
if  it  is  to  be  rich  and  expressive,  involves  not  only  25 
foresight  of  the  end  in  the  beginning,  but  also  de- 
velopment or  growth  of  design,  in  the  process  of 
execution,  with  many  irregularities,  surprises,  and 
afterthoughts ;  the  contingent  as  well  as  the  neces- 
sary being  subsumed  under  the  unity  of  the  whole.  30 
As  truly,  to  the  lack  of  such  architectural  design, 
of  a  single,  almost  visual,  image,  vigorously  in- 
forming an  entire,  perhaps  very  intricate,  composi- 


STYLE  139 

tion,  which  shall  be  austere,  ornate,  argumentative, 
fanciful,  yet  true  from  first  to  last  to  that  vision 
within,  may  be  attributed  those  weaknesses  of  con- 
scious or  unconscious  repetition  of  word,  phrase, 
5  motive,  or  member  of  the  whole  matter,  indicat- 
ing, as  Flaubert  was  aware,  an  original  stiucture 
in  thought  not  organically! complete.  With  such 
foresight,  the  actual  conclusion  will  most  often  get 
itself  written  out  of  hand,  before,  in  the  most  obvi- 

lo  ous  sense,  the  work  is  finished.  With  some  strong 
and  leading  sense  of  the  world,  the  tight  hold  of 
which  secures  true  composition  and  not  mere  loose 
accretion,  the  literary  artist,  I  suppose,  goes  on 
considerately,   setting  joint  to  joint,  sustained  by 

15  yet  restraining  the  productive  ardour,  retracing  the 
negligences  of  his  first  sketch,  repeating  his  steps 
only  that  he  may  give  the  reader  a  sense  of  secure 
and  restful  progress,  readjusting  mere  assonances 
even,  that  they  may  soothe  the  ^reader,  or  at  least 

20  not  interrupt  him  on  his  way ;  and  then,  somewhere 
before  the  end  comes,  is  burdened,  inspired,  with 
his  conclusion,  and  betimes  delivered  of  it,  leaving 
off,  not  in  weariness  and  because  he  finds  himself 
at  an  end,  but  in  all  the  freshness  of  volition.     His 

25  work  now  structurally  complete,  with  all  the  accu- 
mulating effect  of  secondary  shades  of  meaning, 
he  finished  the  whole  up  to  the  just  proportion  of 
that  ante-penultimate  conclusion,  and  all  becomes 
expressive.   The  house Jie  has  built  is  rather  a  body 

30  he  has  informed.  AiTd  so  it  happens,  to  its  greater 
credit,  that  the  better  interest  even,  of  a  narrative 
to  be  recounted,  a  story  to  be  told,  will  often  be  in 
its  second  reading.  VA.nd  though  there  are  instances 


;i 


140  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

I     of  great  writers  who  have  been  no  artists,  an  an- 
1     conscious  tact  sometimes  directing  work  in  which 
1    we  may  detect,  very  pleasurably,  many  of  the  effects 
I    of  conscious  art,  yet  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures 
of  really  good  prose  literature  is  in  the  critical  trac-5 
ing  out  of  that  conscious  artistic  structure,  and  the 
pervading  sense  of  it  as  we  read.     Yet  of  poetic 
literature  too;  for,  in  truth,  the  kind^of  construct-^ 
ive  intelligence  here  supposed  is  one  of  the  forms 
of  the  imagination,  10 

That  is   the  special   function   of  mind,  in   style. 
Mind    and   soul :  —  hard    to    ascertain    philosophi- 
cally, the  distinction  is  real  enough  practically,  for 
they  often  interfere,  are  sometimes  in  conflict,  with     • 
each  other.     Blake,  in  the  last  century,  is  an  in- 15 
stance  of  preponderating  soul,   embarrassed,   at  a 
loss,  in  an  era  of  preponderating  mind.    As  a  qual- 
ity of  style,  at  all  events,  soul  is  a  fact,  in  certain 
writers  —  the    way    they    have    of    absorbing    lan- 
guage, of  attracting  it  into  the  peculiar  spirit  they  20 
are  of,  with  a  subtlety  which  makes  the  actual  re- 
sult seem  like  some  inexplicable  inspiration.     By 
mind,  the  literary  artist  reaches  us,  through  static 
and  objective  indications  of  design  in  his  work,  leg- 
ible to  all.     By  soul,  he  reaches  us,  somewhat  ca-25 
priciously  perhaps,  one  and  not  another,  through 
vagrant  sympathy  and  a  kind  of  immediate  con- 
tact.    Mind  we  cannot  choose  but  approve  where 
we  recognise  it ;  soul  may  repel  us,  not  because  we 
misunderstand  it.     The  way  in  which  theological  3a 
interests   sometimes   avail  themselves   of  language 
is  perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  the  force  I  mean 
to  indicate  generally  in  literature,  by  the  word  soul. 


j  w 


STYLE  141 

Ardent  religious  persuasion  may  exist,  may  make 
its  way,  without  finding  any  equivalent  heat  in  lan- 
guage :  or,  again,  it  may  enkindle  words  to  various 
degrees,  and  when  it  really  takes  hold  of  them 
5  doubles  its  force.  Religious  history  presents  many 
remarkable  instances  in  which,  through  no  mere 
phrase-worship,  an  unconscious  literary  tact  has, 
for  the  sensitive,  laid  open  a  privileged  pathway 
from  one  to  another.     "  The  altar-fire,"  people  say, 

10  "  has  touched  those  lips  !  "  The  Vulgate,  the  Eng- 
lish Bible,  the  English  Prayer-Book,  the  writings 
of  Swedenborg,  the  Tracts  for  the  Times :  —  there, 
we  have  instances  of  widely  di^efent  and  largely 
diffused  phases  of  religious  feeling  in  operation  as 

'5  soul  in  style.  But  something  of  the  same  kind  acts 
with  similar  power  in  certain  writers  of  quite  other 
than  theological  literature,  on  behalf,  of  some 
wholly  personal  and  peculiar  sense  of  theirs.  Most 
easily  illustrated  by  theological  literature,  this  qual- 

20  ity  lends  to  profane  writers  a  kind  of  religious  in- 
fluence. At  their  best,  these  writers  become,  as 
we  say  sometimes,  "  prophets  "  ;  such  character  de- 
pending on  the  effect  not  merely  of  their  matter, 
but  of  their  matter  as  allied  to,  in  "  electric  affinity  "   |s^ 

25  with,  peculiar  form,  and  working  in  all  cases  by  an     / 
immediate  sympathetic  contact,  on  which  account  \ 
it  is  that  it  may  be  called  soul,  as  opposed  to  mind,    ^ 
in  style.    And  this  too  is  a  faculty  of  choosing  and 
rejecting  what  is  congruous  or  otherwise,  with  a     I 

30  drift  towards  unity  —  unity  of  atmosphere  here,  as  _, I 
there  of  design  —  soul  securing  colour  (or  perfume, 
might  we  say?)  as  mind  secures  form,  the  latter 
being  essentially  finite,  the  former  vague  or  infi- 


142  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

nite,  as  the  influence  of  a  living  person  Is  practi- 
cally infinite.  There  are  some  to  whom  nothing 
has  any  real  interest,  or  real  meaning,  except  as 
operative  in  a  given  person ;  and  it  is  they  who  best 
appreciate  the  quahty  of  soul  in  literary  art.  They  5 
seem  to  know  a  person,  in  a  book,  and  make  way 
by  intuition :  yet,  although  they  thus  enjoy  the  com- 
pleteness of  a  personal  information,  it  is  still  a  char- 
acteristic of  soul,  in  this  sense  of  the  word,  that  it 
does  but  suggest  what  can  never  be  uttered,  notio 
as  being  different  from,  or  more  obscure  than,  what 
actually  gets  said,  but  as  containing  that  plenary 
substance  of  which  there  is  only  one  phase  or  facet 
in  what  is  there  expressed. 

If  all  high  things  have  their  martyrs,   Gustave  15 
Flaubert  might  perhaps  rank  as  the  martyr  of  liter- 
ary style.     In  his  printed  correspondence,  a  curious 
series  of  letters,  written  in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  re- 
cords what  seems  to  have  been  his  one  other  pas- 
sion—  a  series  of  letters  which,  with  its  fine  casuis-2Q 
tries,  its  firmly  repressed  anguish,  its  tone  of  har- 
monious gray,  and  the  sense  of  disillusion  in  which 
the   whole   matter   ends,   might   have   been,   a  few 
slight  changes  supposed,  one  of  his   own  fictions. 
Writing  to  Madame  X.  certainly  he  does  display,  25 
by  "  taking  thought  "  mainly,  by  constant  and  deli- 
cate pondering,  as  in  his  love  for  literature,  a  heart 
really  moved,  but  still  more,  and  as  the  pledge  of 
that  emotion,  a  loyalty  to  his  work.     jNIadame  X., 
too,  is  a  literary  artist,  and  the  best  gifts  he  can  30 
send  her  are  precepts  of  perfection  in  art,  counsels 
for  the  effectual  pursuit  of  that  better  love.     In  his 
love-letters  it  is  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  art  he 


STYLE  143 

insists  on,  its  solaces:  he  communicates  secrets,  re- 
proves, encourages,  with  a  view  to  that.  Whether 
the  lady  was  dissatisfied  with  such  divided  or  in- 
direct service,  the  reader  is  not  enabled  to  see;  but 
5  sees  that,  on  Flaubert's  part  at  least,  a  living  per- 
son could  be  no  rival  of  what  was,  from  first  to 
last,  his  leading  passion,  a  somewhat  solitary  and 
exclusive  one. 

"  I  must  scold  you,"  he  writes,  "  for  one  thing,  which 
shocks,  scandalises  me,  the  small  concern,  namely,  you 
show  for  art  just  now.  As  regards  glory  be  it  so:  there, 
I  approve.  But  for  art!  —  the  one  thing  in  life  that  is 
good  and  real  —  can  you  compare  with  it  an  earthly 
Jove?  —  prefer  the  adoration  of  a  relative  beauty  to  the 
cultus  of  the  true  beauty?  Well!  I  tell  you  the  truth. 
That  is  the  one  thing  good  in  me:  the  one  thing  I  have, 
to  me  estimable.  For  yourself,  you  blend  with  the  beauti- 
ful a  heap  of  alien  things,  the  useful,  the  agreeable,  what 
not?  — 

"  The  only  way  not  to  be  unhappy  is  to  shut  yourself 
up  in  art,  and  count  everything  else  as  nothing.  Pride 
takes  the  place  of  all  beside  when  it  is  established  on  a 
large  basis.  Work!  God  wills  it.  That,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  clear. — 

"  I  am  reading  over  again  the  yEne/d,  certain  verses  of 
which  I  repeat  to  myself  to  satiety.  There  are  phrases 
there  which  stay  in  one's  head,  by  which  I  find  myself 
beset,  as  with  those  musical  airs  which  are  for  ever  re- 
turning, and  cause  you  pain,  you  love  them  so  much.  I 
observe  that  I  no  longer  laugh  much,  and  am  no  longer 
depressed.  I  am  ripe.  You  talk  of  my  serenity,  and  envy 
me.  It  may  well  surprise  you.  Sick,  irritated,  the  prey 
a  thousand  times  a  day  of  cruel  pain,  I  continue  my 
labour  like  a  true  working-man,  who,  with  sleeves  turned 
up,  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  beats  away  at  his  anvil,  never 
troubling  himself  whether  it  rains  or  blows,  for  hail  or 
thunder.  I  was  not  like  that  formerly.  The  change  has 
taken  place  naturally,  though  my  will  has  counted  for 
something  in  the  matter. — 


144  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

"  Those  who  write  in  good  style  are  sometimes  accused 
of  a  neglect  of  ideas,  and  of  the  moral  end,  as  if  the  end 
of  the  physician  were  something  else  than  healing,  of  the 
painter  than  painting  —  as  if  the  end  of  art  were  not, 
before  ajl  else,  the  beautiful." 

What,  then,  did  Flaubert  understand  by  beauty, 
in  the  art  he  pursued  with  so  much  fervour,  with 
so  much  self-command?  Let  us  hear  a  sympathetic 
commentator :  — 

"  Possessed  of  an  absolute  belief  that  there  exists  but 
one  way  of  expressing  one  thing,  one  word  to  call  it  by, 
one  adjective  to  qualify,  one  verb  to  animate  it,  he  gave 
himself  to  superhuman  labour  for  the  discovery,  in  every 
phrase,  of  that  word,  that  verb,  that  epithet.  In  this  way, 
he  believed  in  some  mysterious  harmony  of  expression, 
and  when  a  true  word  seemed  to  him  to  lack  euphony 
still  went  on  seeking  another,  with  invincible  patience, 
certain  that  he  had  not  yet  got  hold  of  the  unique  word. 
.  .  .  A  thousand  preoccupations  would  beset  him  at 
the  same  moment,  always  with  this  desperate  certitude 
fixed  in  his  spirit:  Among  all  the  expressions  in  the 
world,  all  forms  and  turns  of  expression,  there  is  but 
one  —  one  form,  one  mode  —  to  express  what  I  want  to 
say."  ^ — .— „_ 

^  The  one  word  for  the  one  thing,  the  one  thought,  5 
amid  the  multitude  of  words,  terms,  that  might 
just  do:  the  problem  of  style  was  there! — the 
unique  word,  phrase,  sentence,  paragraph,  essay,  or 
song,  absolutely  proper  to  the  single  mental  pres- 
entation or  vision  within.  In  that  perfect  justice,  10 
over  and  above  the  many  contingent  and  remov- 
able beauties  with  which  beautiful  style  may  charm 
us,  but  which  it  can  exist  without,  independent  of 
them  yet  dexterously  availing  itself  of  them,  omni- 


STYLE  MS 

present  in  good  work,  in  function  at  every  point,  / 
from  single  epithets  to  the  rhythm  of  a  whole  book, ' 
lay    the    specific,    indispensable,    very    intellectual,! 
beauty  of  literature,  the  possibility  of  which  con- 
5  s'titutes  it  a  fine  art. 

One  seems  to  detect  the  influence  of  a  philosophic 
idea  there,  the  idea  of  a  natural  economy,  of  some 
pre-existent  adaptation,  between  a  relative,  some-\ 
where  in  the  world  of  thought,  and  its  correlative,  1  \ 

lo  somewhere  in  the  world  of  language  —  both  alike,     / 
rather,   somewhere     in     the     mind    of    the    artist, 
desiderative,   expectant,   inventive  —  meeting   each 
other  with  the   readiness   of  "  soul  and   body  re- 
united," in  Blake's  rapturous  design ;  and,  in  fact, 

15  Flaubert  was  fond  of  giving  his  theory  philosophi- 
cal expression. — 

"  There  are  no  beautiful  thoughts,"  he  would  say, 
"  without  beautiful  forms,  and  conversely.  As  it  is  im- 
possible to  extract  from  physical  body  the  qualities  which 
really  constitute  it  —  colour,  extension,  and  the  like  — 
without  reducmg  it  to  a  hollow  abstraction,  in  a  word, 
without  destroying  it;  just  .so  it  is  impossible  to  detach 
the  form  from  the  idea,  for  the  idea  only  exists  by  virtue 
of  the  form." 

All  the  recognised  flowers,  the  removable  orna-  /      y 
ments  of  literature  (including  harmony  and  ease  in  /*t> 
reading  aloud,  very  carefully  considered  by  him)  • 
20  counted  certainly ;  for  these  too  are  part  of  the  ac-  I  \^ 
tual  value  of  what  one  says.     But  still,  iafter  all, 
with  Flaubert,  the  search,  the  unwearied  research, 
was  not  for  the   smooth,   or  winsome,   or  forcible 
word,  as  such,  as  with  false  Ciceronians,  but  quite 
10 


/ 


146  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

^Tsimply  and  honestly,  for  the  word's  adjustment  to 
r?  its  meaning.     The  first  condition  of  this  must  be, 
I      of  course,  to   know  yourself,  to  have  ascertained 
I      your  own  sense  exactly.     Then,  if  we  suppose  an 
artist,  he  says  to  the  reader, —  I  want  you  to  see  5 
precisely  what  I  see.     Into  the  mind  sensitive  to 
"  form,"  a  flood  of  random  sounds,  colours,  inci- 
dents, is  ever  penetrating  from  the  world  without, 
to  become,  by  sympathetic  selection,  a  part  of  its 
very  structure,  and,  in  turn,  the  visible  vesture  and  10 
expression  of  that  other  world  it  sees  so  steadily 
'r     within,    nay,    already    with    a    partial    conformity 
^      thereto,  to  be  refined,  enlarged,  corrected,  at  a  hun- 
""     dred  points ;  and  it  is  just  there,  just  at  those  doubt- 
ful points  that  the  function  of  style,  as  tact  or  taste,  15 
intervenes.      The    unique    term    will    come    more 
^^     quickly  to  one  than  another,  at  one  time  than  an- 
other, according  also  to  the  kind  of  matter  in  ques- 
X 1/  tion.     Quickness  and  slowness,  ease  and  closeness 
alike,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  artistic  character  20 
of  the  true  word  found  at  last.    As  there  is  a  charm 
of  ease,  so  there  is  also  a  special  charm  in  the  signs 
of  discovery,   of  effort  and   contention   towards   a 
due  end,  as  so  often  with  Flaubert  himself  —  in  the 
style  which  has  been  pliant,  as  only  obstinate,  dur-25 
able  metal  can  be,  to  the  inherent  perplexities  and 
recusancy  of  a  certain  difficult  thought. 

If  Flaubert  had  not  told  us,  perhaps  we  should 
never  have  guessed  how  tardy  and  painful  his  own 
procedure  really  was,  and  after  reading  his  confes-30 
sion  may  think  that  his  almost  endless  hesitation 
had  much  to  do  with  diseased  nerves.  Often,  per- 
haps, the  felicity  supposed  will  be  the  product  of 


^, 


STYLE  147 

a  happier,  a  more  exuberant  nature  than  Flaubert's. 
Aggravated,  certainly,  by  a  morbid  physical  condi- 
tion, that  anxiety  in  "  seeking  the  phrase,"  which 
gathered  all  the  other  small  ennuis  of  a  really  quiet 

5  existence  into  a  kind  of  battle,  was  connected  with 
his  lifelong  contention  against  facile  poetry,  facile 
art  —  art,  facile  and  flimsy;  and  what  constitutes 
the  true  artist  is  not  the  slowness  or  quickness  of 
the  process,  but  the  absolute  success  of  the  result. 

10  As  with  those  labourers  in  the  parable,  the  prize 
is  independent  of  the  mere  length  of  the  actual 
day's  work.  "  You  talk,"  he  writes,  odd,  trying 
lover,  to  Madame  X. — 

"  You  talk  of  the  exclusiveness  of  my  literary  tastes. 
That  might  have  enabjed  you  to  divine  what  kind  of  a 
person  I  am  in  the  matter  of  love.  I  grow  so  hard  to 
please  as  a  literary  artist,  that  I  am  driven  to  despair.  I 
shall  end  by  not  writing  another  line." 

"  Happy,"  he  cries,  in  a  moment  of  discourage- 
15  ment  at  that  patient  labour,  which  for  him,  cer- 
tainly, was  the  condition  of  a  great  success  — 

"  Happy  those  who  have  no  doubts  of  themselves!  who 
lengthen  out,  as  the  pen  runs  on,  all  that  flows  forth  from 
their  brains.  As  for  me,  I  hesitate,  I  disappoint  myself, 
turn  round  upou  myself  in  despite:  my  taste  is  augmented 
in  proportion  as  my  natural  vigour  decreases,  and  I  afflict 
my  soul  over  some  dubious  word  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  pleasure  I  get  from  a  whole  page  of  good  writing. 
One  would  have  to  live  two  centuries  to  attain  a  true  idea 
of  any  matter  whatever.  What  Buff  on  said  is  a^big 
blasphemy:  genius  is  not  long-continued  patience.  3till, 
there  is  sonrc  truth  in  the  statement,  and  more  than 
people  think,   especially  as  regards  our  own  day.     Artl 


X 


148  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

art!  art!  bitter  deception!  phantom  that  glows  with  light, 
only  to  lead  one  on  to  destruction." 

Again  — 

"  I  am  growing  so  peevish  about  my  writing.  I  am 
like  a  man  whose  ear  is  true  but  who  plays  falsely  on  the 
violin:  his  fingers  refuse  to  reproduce  precisely  those 
sounds  of  which  he  has  the  inward  sense.  Then  the  tears 
come  rolling  down  from  the  poor  scraper's  eyes  and  the 
bow  falls  from  his  hand." 


-^  Coming  slowly  or  quickly,  when  it  comes,  as  it 
came  with  so  much  labour  of  mind,  but  also  with 
so  much  lustre,  to  Gustave  Flaubert,  this  discovery 
of  the  word  will  be,  like  all  artistic  success  and  5 
felicity,  incapable  of  strict  analysis :  efifect  of  an  in- 
tuitive condition  of  mind,  it  must  be  recognised  by 
like  intuition  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  and  a  sort 
of  immediate  sense.  In  every  one  of  those  mas- 
terly sentences  of  Flaubert  there  w^as,  below  alli»3 
mere  contrivance,  shaping  and  afterthought,  by 
some  happy  instantaneous  concourse  of  the  various 
faculties  of  the  mind  with  each  other,  the  exact  ap- 
prehension of  what  was  needed  to  carry  the  mean- 
ing. And  that  it  fits  with  absolute  justice  will  bei3 
a  judgment  of  immediate  sense  in  the  appreciative 
reader.  We  all  feel  this  in  what  may  be  called  in- 
spired translation.  Well !  all  language  involves 
translation  from  inward  to  outward.  In  literature, 
as  in  all  forms  of  art,  there  are  the  absolute  and  2c 
the  merely  relative  or  accessory  beauties;  and  pre- 
cisely in  that  exact  proportion  of  the  term  to  its 
purpose  is  the  absolute  beauty  of  style,  prose  or 


STYLE  149 

verse.  All  the  good  qualities,  the  beauties,  of| 
verse  also,  are  such,  only  as  precise  expression.  | 
In  the  highest  as  in  the  lowliest  literature,  then, 
the  one  indispensable  beauty  is,  after  all,  timth :  — - 
5  truth  to  bare  fact  in  the  latter,  as  to  some  personal 
sense  of  fact,  diverted  somewhat  from  men's  ordi- 
nary sense  of  it,  in  the  former;  truth  there  as  ac- 
curacy, truth  here  as  expression,  that  finest  and 
most  intimate  form  of  truth,  the  vraie  veritS'sf  And 

to  what  an  eclectic  principle  this  really  is !  employing 
for  its  one  sole  purpose  —  that  absolute  accordance 
of  expression  to  idea  —  all  other  literary  beauties 
and  excellences  whatever ^how  many  kinds  of  style 
it  covers,  explains,  justifies,  and  at  the  same  time 

15  safeguards  !  Scott's  facility,  Flaubert's  deeply  pon- 
dered evocation  of  "  the  phrase,"  are  equally  good 
art.  Say  what  you  have  to  say,  what  you  have  a 
will  to  say,  in  the  simplest,  the  most  direct  and 
exact    manner    possible,    with    no    surplusage :  — 

20  there,  is  the  justification  of  the  sentence  so  fortu- 
nately born,  "  entire,  smooth,  and  round,"  that  it 
needs  no  punctuation,  and  also  (that  is  the  point!) 
of  the  most  elaborate  period,  if  it  be  right  in  its 
elaboration.     Here  is  the  ofhce  of  ornament:  here 

25  also  the  purpose  of  restraint  in  ornament.  As  the 
exponent  of  truth,  that  austerity  (the  beauty,  the 
function,  of  which  in  literature  Flaubert  understood 
so  well)  becomes  not  the  correctness  or  purism  of 
the  mere  scholar,  but  a  security  against  the  otiose, 

30  a  jealous  exclusion  of  what  does  not  really  tell 
towards  the  pursuit  of  relief,  of  life  and  vigour  in 
the  portraiture  of  one's  sense.  License  again,  the 
making  free  with  rule,  if  it  be  indeed,  as  people 


A 


150  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

fancy,  a  habit  of  genius,  flinging  aside  or  trans- 
forming all  that  opposes  the  liberty  of  beautiful 
production,  will  be  but  faith  to  one's  own  meaning. 
The  seeming  baldness  of  Lc  Rouge  ct  Le  Noir  is 
nothing  in  itself;  the  wild  ornament  of  Les  Misera-s 
blcs  is  nothing  in  itself;  and  the  restraint  of  Flau- 
bert, amid  a  real  natural  opulence,  only  redoubled 
beauty  —  the  phrase  so  large  and  so  precise  at  the 
same  time,  hard  as  bronze,  in  service  to  the  more 
perfect  adaptation  of  words  to  their  matter.  After- 10 
thoughts,  retouchings,  finish,  will  be  of  profit  only 
so  far  as  they  too  really  serve  to  bring  out  the  origi- 
jial,  initiative,  generative,  sense  in  them. 

In  this  way,  according  to  the  well-known  say- 
ing, ''The  style  is  the  man,"  complex  or  simiple,  15 
in  his  individuality,  his  plenary  sense  of  what  he 
really  has  to  say,  his  sense  of  the  world;  all  cau- 
tions regarding  style  arising  out  of  so  many  natural 
scruples  as  to  the  medium  through  which  alone  he 
can  expose  that  inward  sense  of  things,  the  purity  20 
of  this   medium,  its   laws   or  tricks   of  refraction : 
nothing  is  to  be  left  there  which  might  give  con- 
veyance to  any  matter  save  that.     Style  in  all  its 
varieties,  reserved  or  opulent,  terse,  abundant,  mu- 
sical, stimulant,  academic,  so  long  as  each  is  really  25 
[   characteristic  or  expressive,  finds  thus  its  justifica- 
l_t|on,  the  sumptuous  good  taste  of  Cicero  being  as 
truly  the  man  himself,  and  not  another,  justified, 
yet  insured  inalienably  to  him,  thereby,  as  would 
have  been  his  portrait  by  Raphael,  in  full  consular  3c 
splendor,  on  his  ivory  chair. 

A  relegation,  you  may  say  perhaps  —  a  relega- 
tion of  style  to  the  subjectivity,  the  mere  caprice, 


STYLE  151 

of  the  individual,  which  must  soon  transform  it  into 
mannerism.  Not  so !  since  there  is,  under  the  con- 
ditions supposed,  for  those  elements  of  the  man, 
for  every  lineament  of  the  vision  within,  the  one 
5  word,  the  one  acceptable  word,  recognisable  by  the 
sensitive,  by  others  "  who  have  intelligence  "  in  the 
matter,  as  absolutely  as  ever  anything  can  be  in  the 
evanescent  and  delicate  region  of  human  language. 
The  style,  the  manner,  would  be  the  man,  not  in  his 
10  unreasoned  and  really  uncharacteristic  caprices,  in- 
voluntary or  affected,  but  in  absolutely  sincere  ap- 
prehension of  what  is  most  real  to  him.  But  let 
us  hear  our  French  guide  again. — 

"  Styles,"  says  Flaubert's  commentator,  "  Styles,  as  so 
many  peculiar  moulds,  each  of  which  bears  the  mark  of  a 
particular  writer,  who  is  to  pour  into  it  the  whole  content 
of  his  ideas,  were  no  part  of  his  theory.  What  he  believed 
in  was  Style:  that  is  to  say,  a  certain  absolute  and  unique 
manner  of  expressing  a  thing,  in  all  its  intensity  and 
colour.  For  him  the  form  was  the  work  itself.  As  in 
living  creatures,  the  blood,  nourishing  the  body,  deter- 
mines its  very  contour  and  external  aspect,  just  so,  to  his 
mind,  the  matter,  the  basis,  in  a  work  of  art,  imposed, 
necessarily,  the  unique,  the  just  expression,  the  measure,  j 
the  rhythm  —  the  form  in  all  its  characteristics."  j 

If  the  style  be  the  man,  in  all  the  colour  and  in-    . 

15  tensity  of  a  veritable  apprehension,  it  will  be  in  a    V 
real  sense  **  impersonal."  1 

I  said,  thinking  of  books  like  Victor  Hugo's  Les 
Miserables,  that  prose  literature  was  the  character- 
istic art  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  others,  think- 

20  ing  of  its  triumphs  since  the  youth  of  Bach,  have 
assigned  that  place  to  music.     Music  and  prose  lit-  [  V/ 
erature  are,  in  one  sense,  the  opposite  terms  of  art ;  '    ' 
the  art  of  literature  presenting  to  the  imaginatioiij 


> 


152  SELECTIONS  EROM  EATER 

through  the  intelligence,  a  range  of  interests,  as  free 
and  various  as  those  which  music  presents  to  it 
through  sense.  And  certainly  the  tendency  of  what 
has  been  here  said  is  to  bring  literature  too  under 
those  conditions,  by  conformity  to  which  n:usic5 
takes  rank  as  the  typically  perfect  art.  If  music  be 
the  ideal  of  all  art  whatever,  precisely  because  in 
music  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  the  form  from 
the  substance  or  matter,  the  subiect  from  the  ex- 
pression, then,  literature,  by  finding  its  specific  ex-io 
cellence  in  the  absolute  correspondence  of  the  term 
to  its  import,  will  be  but  fulfilling  the  condition  of 
all  artistic  quality  in  things  everywhere,  of  all  good 
art^ 

/Good  art,  but  not  necessarily  great  art;  the  dis-15 
tinction  between  great  art  and  good  art  depending 
immediately,  as  regards  literature  at  all  events,  not 
on  its  form,  but  on  tlge  matter.     Thackeray's  Es- 
mond, surely,  is  greater  art  than  Vanity  Fair,  by 
the  greater  dignity  of  its  interests.  |'  It  is  on  the  20 
quality   of   the   matter   it   informs   or  controls,  its 
compass,  its  variety,  its  alliance  to  great  ends,  or 
the  depth  of  the  note  of  revolt,  or  the  largeness  of 
hope  in   it,  that  the  greatness  of  literary  art  de- 
pends,) as   The  Divine  Comedy,  Paradise  Lost,   Les2s 
Miserables,  The  English  Bible,  are  great  art.     Given 
the  conditions  I  have  tried  to  explain  as  constitut- 
ing good  art;  —  then,  if  it  be  devoted  further  to 
the  increase  of  men's  happiness,  to  the  redemption 
of  the  oppressed,  or  the  enlargement  of  our  sympa-30 
thies  with  each  other,  or  to  such  presentment  of 
new  or  old  truth  about  ourselves  and  our  relation 
to  the  world  as  may  ennoble  and  fortify  us  in  our 


STYLE  153 

sojourn  here,  or  immediately,  as  with  Dante,  to  the 
glory  of  God,  it  will  be  also  great  art;  if,  over  and 
above  those  qualities  I  summed  up  as  mind  and 
soul  —  that  colour  and  mystic  perfume,  and  that 
5  reasonable  structure,  it  has  something  of  the  soul 
of  humanity  in  it,  and  finds  its  logical,  its  architec- 
tural place,  in  the  great  structure  of  human  life. 

(From  the  Fortnightly  Review,  December,   1888.     Appre- 
ciations, 1889.) 


Ube  Oenius  of  ©lato 

All  true  criticism  of  philosophic  doctrine,  as  of 
every  other  product  of  human  mind,  must  begin 
with  an  historic  estimate  of  the  conditions,  antece- 
dent and  contemporary,  which  helped  to  make  it 
precisely  what  it  was.  But  a  complete  criticism  5 
does  not  end  there.  In  the  evolution  of  abstract 
doctrine  as  we  find  it  written  in  the  history  of 
philosophy,  if  there  is  always,  on  one  side,  the 
fatal,  irresistible,  mechanic,  play  of  circumstance  — 
the  circumstances  of  a  particular  age,  which  may  la 
be  analysed  and  explained ;  there  is  always  also,  as 
if  acting  from  the  opposite  side,  the  comparatively 
inexplicable  force  of  a  personality,  resistant  to, 
while  it  is  moulded  by,  them.  It  might  even  be 
said  that  the  trial-task  of  criticism,  in  regard  to  ^5 
literature  and  art  no  less  than  to  philosophy,  be- 
gins exactly  where  the  estimate  of  general  condi- 
tions, of  the  conditions  common  to  all  the  products 
of  this  or  that  particular  age  —  of  the  ''  environ- 
ment "  —  leaves  ofif,  and  we  touch  what  is  unique  ^o 
in  the  individual  genius  which  contrived  after  all, 
by  force  of  will,  to  have  its  own  masterful  way  with 
that  environment.  If  in  reading  Plato,  for  instance, 
the  philosophic  student  has  to  re-construct  for  him- 
self, as  far  as  possible,  the  general  character  of  an  ^5 
age,  he  must  also,  so  far  as  he  may,  re-produce 
the  portrait  of  a  person.  The  Sophists,  the  Sophis- 
tical world,  around  him ;  his  master,  Socrates ; 
154 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  155 

the  Pre-Socratic  philosophies;  the  mechanic  in- 
fluence, that  is  to  say,  of  past  and  present:  —  of 
course  we  can  know  nothing  at  all  of  the  Platonic 
doctrine  except  so  far  as  we  see  it  in  well-ascer- 
5  tained  contact  with  all  that ;  but  there  is  also  Plato 
himself  in  it. 

—  A  personality,  we. may  notice  at  the  onset,  of 
a  certain  complication.  The  great  masters  of 
philosophy  have  been  for  the  most  part  its  notice- 

loably  single-minded  servants.  As  if  in  emulation 
of  Aristotle's  simplicity  of  character,  his  absorb- 
ing intellectualism  —  impressive,  certainly,  heroic 
enough,  in  its  way  —  they  have  served  science, 
science  in  vacuo,  as  if  nothing  beside,  faith,  imagi- 

15  nation,  love,  the  bodily  sense,  could  detach  them 
from  it  for  an  hour  It  is  not  merely  that  we 
know  little  of  their  lives  (there  was  so  little  to  tell !) 
but  that  we  know  nothing  at  all  of  their  tempera^ 
ments;    of    which,    that    one    leading    abstract    or 

20  scientific  force  in  them  was  in  fact  strictly  exclu- 
sive. Little  more  than  intellectual  abstractions 
themselves,  in  them  philosophy  was  wholly  faith- 
ful to  its  colours,  or  its  colourlessness ;  rendering 
not  gray  only,  as  Hegel  said  of  it,  but  all  colours 

25  alike,  in  gray. 

With  Plato  it  was  otherwise.  In  him,  the  pas- 
sion for  truth  did  but  bend,  or  take  the  bent  of, 
certain  ineradicable  predispositions  of  his  nature,  in 
themselves  perhaps  somewhat  opposed  to  that.     It 

30  is  however  in  the  blending  of  diverse  elements  in 
the  mental  constitution  of  Plato  that  the  peculiar 
Platonic  quality  resides.  Platonism  is  in  one  sense 
an  emphatic  witness  to  the  unseen,  the  transcen- 


156  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

dental,  the  non-experienced,  the  beauty,  for  in- 
stance, which  is  not  for  the  bodily  eye.  Yet  the 
author  of  this  philosophy  of  the  unseen  was, — Who 
can  doubt  it  who  has  read  but  a  page  of  him  ?  this, 
in  fact,  is  what  has  led  and  kept  to  his  pages  many  5 
who  have  little  or  no  turn  for  the  sort  of  questions 
Plato  actually  discusses :  — The  author  of  this  phi- 
losophy of  the  unseen  was  one,  for  whom,  as  was 
said  of  a  very  different  French  writer,  "  the  visible 
world  really  existed."  Austere  as  he  seems,  and  la 
on  well-considered  principle  really  is,  his  temper- 
ance or  austerity,  aesthetically  so  winning,  is  at- 
tained only  by  the  chastisement,  the  control,  of  a 
variously  interested,  a  richly  sensuous  nature. 
Yes,  the  visible  world,  so  pre-eminently  worth  eye-  15 
sight  at  Athens  just  then,  really  existed  for  him : 
exists  still  —  there's  the  point !  —  is  active  still 
everywhere,  when  he  seems  to  have  turned  away 
from  it  to  invisible  things.  To  the  somewhat  sad- 
coloured  school  of  Socrates,  and  its  discipline  to-  20 
wards  apathy  or  contempt  in  such  matters,  he  had 
brought  capacities  of  bodily  sense  with  the  mak- 
ing in  them  of  an  Odyssey;  or  (shall  we  say?)  of 
a  poet  after  the  order  of  Sappho  or  Catullus ;  as 
indeed  also  a  practical  intelligence,  a  popular  man-  25 
agement  of  his  own  powers,  a  skill  in  philosophic 
yet  talkable  Greek  prose,  which  might  have  con- 
stituted him  the  most  successful  of  "  Sophists." 
1  You  cannot  help  seeing  that  his  mind  is  a  store- 

1^  house  of    all  the    liveliest  imageries  of    men  and  30 
things.     Nothing,  if  it  really  arrests  eye  or  ear  at 
all,   is   too   trivial  to  note.     Passing  through   the 
«:*-<awd  of  human  beings,  he  notes  the  sounds  alike 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  157 

of  their  solemn  hymns  and  of  their  pettiest  handi- 
craft. A  conventional  philosopher  might  speak  of 
"  dumb  matter,"  for  instance ;  but  Plato  has  lin- 
gered too  long  in  braziers'  workshops  to  lapse  into 
5  so  stupid  an  epithet.  And  if  the  persistent  hold  of 
sensible  things  upon  him  thus  reveals  itself  in 
trifles,  it  is  manifest  no  less  in  the  way  in  which 
he  can  tell  a  long  story, —  no  one  more  effectively ! 
and  again,  in    his    graphic  presentment  of    whole 

10  scenes  from  actual  life,  like  that  with  which  The 
Republic  opens.  His  Socrates,  like  other  people,  is 
curious  to  witness  a  new  religious  function :  how 
they  will  do  it.  As  in  modern  times,  it  would  be 
a  pleasant  occasion  also  for  meeting  the  acquaint- 

15  ance  one  likes  best: — Suvsao/ieda  tzoXXoi<;  tu>v  viiov 
auroOt.  '*  We  shall  meet  a  number  of  our  youth 
there:  we  shall  have  a  dialogue:  there  will  be  a 
torchlight  procession  in  honour  of  the  goddess,  an 
equestrian   procession:  a  novel   feature!  —  What? 

ao Torches  in  their  hands,  passed  on  as  they  race? 
Aye,  and  an  illumination,  through  the  entire  night. 
It  will  be  worth  seeing!"  —  that  old  midnight 
hour,  as  Carlyle  says  of  another  vivid  scene,  ''  shin- 
ing yet  on  us,  ruddy-bright  through  the  centuries." 

25  Put  alongside  of  that,  and,  for  life-like  charm, 
side  by  side  with  Murillo's  Beggar-boys  (you 
catch  them,  if  you  look  at  his  canvas  on  the  sud- 
den, actually  moving  their  mouths,  to  laugh  and 
speak  and  munch  their  crusts,  all  at  once)  the  scene 

30  in  the  Lysis  of  the  dice-players.  There  the  boys 
are!  in  full  dress,  to  take  part  in  a  religious  cere- 
mony. It  is  scarcely  over ;  but  they  are  already 
busy  with  the   knuckle-bones,  some  just  outside 


158  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

the  door,  others  in  a  corner.  Though  Plato  never 
tells  one  without  due  motive,  yet  he  loves  a  story 
for  its  own  sake,  can  make  one  of  fact  or  fancy  at 
a  moment's  notice,  or  re-tell  other  people's  better: 
how  those  dear  skinny  grasshoppers  of  Attica,  for  5 
instance,  had  once  been  human  creatures,  who, 
when  the  Muses  first  came  on  earth,  were  so  ab- 
sorbed by  their  music  that  they  forgot  even  to  eat 
and  drink,  till  they  died  of  it.  And  then  the  story 
of  Gyges  in  The  Republic,  and  the  ring  that  can  10 
make  its  wearer  invisible :  —  it  goes  as  easily,  as 
the  ring  itself  round  the  finger. 

Like  all  masters  of  literature,  Plato  has  of  course 

varied  excellences ;  but  perhaps  none  of  them  has 

won  for  him  a  larger  number  of  friendly  readers  ^5 

than    this    impress    of    visible    reality.      For    him, 

,  truly  (as  he  supposed  the  highest  sort  of  knowl- 

V        edge  must  of  necessity  be)  all  knowledge  was  like 
y\  knowing  a  person;  and  the  Dialogue  itself,  being, 

/  as  it  is,  the  special  creation  of  his  literary  art,  be-  20 
comes  in  his  hands,  and  by  his  masterly  conduct 
of  it,  like  a  single  living  person ;  so  comprehensive 
a  sense  does  he  bring  to  bear  upon  it  of  the  slowly- 
developing  physiognomy  of  the  thing  —  its  or- 
ganic structure,  its  symmetry  and  expression  —  25 
combining  all  the  various,  disparate,  subjects,  of  The 
Republic,  for  example,  into  a  manageable  whole,  so 
entirely  that,  looking  back,  one  fancies  this  long 
dialogue  of  at  least  three  hundred  pages  might 
have  occupied  —  perhaps  an  afternoon.  3° 

And  those  who  take  part  in  it !  —  If  Plato  did 
not  create  the  "  Socrates  "  of  his  Dialogues,  he  has 
created  other  characters  perhaps  as  life-like.     The 


,  THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  159 

yoimg  Charmides,  the  incarnation  of  natural,  as 
the  aged  Cephalus  of  acquired,  temperance ;  his 
Sophoclean  amenity  as  he  sits  there  pontifically  at 
the  altar,  in  the  court  of  his  peaceful  house;  the 
5  large  company,  of  varied  character  and  of  every 
age,  which  moves  in  those  Dialogues,  though  still 
oftenest  the  young  in  all  their  youthful  liveliness :  ^ 
—  who  that  knows  them  at  all  can  doubt  Plato's 
hold  on  persons,  that  of  persons  on  him?     Some- 

10  times,  even  when  they  are  not  formally  introduced 
into  his  work,  characters  that  had  interested,  im- 
pressed, or  touched  him,  inform  and  colour  it,  as 
if  with  their  personal  influence,  showing  through 
what  purports  to  be  the  wholly  abstract  analysis 

15  of  some  wholly  abstract  moral  situation.  Thus, 
the  form  of  the  dying  Socrates  himself  is  visible 
pathetically  in  the  description  of  the  suffering 
righteous  man,  actually  put  into  his  own  mouth 
in  the  second  book  of   The  Republic;  as  the  win- 

•;5oning  brilliancy  of  the  lost  spirit  of  Alcibiades  in- 
fuses those  pages  of  the  sixth,  which  discuss  the 
nature  of  one  by  birth  and  endowments  an  aristo- 
crat, amid  the  dangers  to  which  it  is  exposed  in 
the  Athens  of  that  day;  the  qualities  which  must 

25  niake  him,  if  not  the  saviour,  the  destroyer,  of  a 
society  which  cannot  remain  unaffected  by  his 
shadowy  presence.  Corniptio  optimi  pcssiina!  Yet 
even  here,  when  Plato  is  dealing  with  the  inmost 
elements  of  personality,  his  eye  is  still  on  its  ob-  j 

30  ject,  on  character  as  seen  in  characteristics,  through  \ 
those  details,  the  changes  of  colour  in  the  face  as  ; 
of  tone  in  the  voice,  the  gestures. —  the  really  ^ 
physiognomic  value,  or  the  mere  tricks,  of  gesture 


i6o  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

or  glance  or  speech, —  which  make  character  a 
sensible  fact.  What  is  visibly  expressive  in,  or 
upon,  persons ;  those  flashes  of  temper  which  check 
yet  give  renewed  interest  to  the  course  of  a  con- 
versation ;  the  delicate  touches  of  intercourse,  5 
which  convey  to  the  very  senses  all  the  subleties 
of  the  heart  or  of  the  intelligence :  —  it  is  always 
more  than  worth  his  while  to  make  note  of  these. 
We  see,  for  instance,  the  sharp  little  pygmy  bit 
of  a  soul  that  catches  sight  of  any  little  thing  so  iq 
keenly,  and  makes  a  very  proper  lawyer.  We 
see,  as  well  as  hear,  the  *  rhapsodist,"  whose  sensi- 
tive performance  of  his  part  is  nothing  less  than 
an  "  interpretation  "  of  it,  artist  and  critic  at  once : 
the  personal  vanities  of  the  various  speakers  in  15 
his  dialogues,  as  though  Plato  had  observed,  or 
overheard  them,  alone;  and  the  inevitable  promi- 
nence of  youth  wherever  it  is  present  at  all,  not- 
withstanding the  real  sweetness  of  manner  and 
modesty  of  soul  he  records  of  it  so  affectionately.  20 
It  is  this  he  loves  best  to  linger  by;  to  feel  him- 
self in  contact  with  a  condition  of  life,  which  trans- 
lates all  it  is,  so  immediately,  into  delightful  colour, 
and  movement,  and  sound.  The  eighth  and  ninth 
books  of  The  Republic  are  a  grave  contribution,  25 
as  you  know,  to  abstract  moral  and  political  theory, 
a  generalisation  of  weighty  changes  of  character  in 
men  and  states.  But  his  observations  on  the  con- 
crete traits  of  individuals,  young  or  old,  which 
enliven  us  on  the  way ;  the  difference  in  sameness  30 
of  sons  and  fathers,  for  instance;  the  influence  of 
servants  on  their  masters:  how  the  minute  am- 
biguities of  rank,  as  a  family  becomes  impoverished. 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  i6i 

tell  on  manners,  on  temper;  all  the  play  of  moral 
colour  in  the  reflex  of  mere  circumstance  on  what 
men  really  are  :  —  the  characterisation  of  all  this 
has  with  Plato  a  touch  of  the  peculiar  fineness  of 

5  Thackeray,  one  might  say :  Plato  enjoys  it  for  its 
own  sake,  and  would  have  been  an  excellent  writer 
of  fiction. 

There  is  plenty  of  humour  in  him  also  of  course, 
and  something  of  irony, —  salt,  to  keep  the  exceed- 

Toing  richness  and  sweetness  of  his  discourse  from 
cloying  the  palate.  The  affectations  of  sophists,  or 
professors,  their  staginess  or  their  inelegance;  the 
harsh  laugh,  the  swaggering  ways,  of  Thrasy- 
machus,  whose  determination  to  make  the  general 

15  company  share  in  a  private  conversation,  is  sig- 
nificant of  his  whole  character :  —  he  notes  with  a 
finely-pointed  pencil,  with  something  of  the  fine- 
ness of  malice, —  malin,  as  the  French  say.  Once 
Thrasymachus  had  been  actually  seen  to  blush.    It 

20  is  with  a  very  different  sort  of  fineness  Plato 
notes  the  blushes  of  the  young;  of  Hippocrates, 
for  instance,  in  the  Protagoras.  The  great  Sophist 
was  said  to  be  in  Athens,  at  the  house  of  Callicles, 
and  the  diligent  young  scholar  is  up  betimes,  eager 

25  to  hear  him :  rouses  Socrates  before  daylight. 
As  they  linger  in  the  court,  the  lad  speaks  of  his 
own  intellectual  aspirations ;  blushes  at  his  con- 
fidence. It  was  just  then  that  the  morning  sun 
blushed  with   his   first  beam,   as   if  to  reveal   the 

30  lad's  blushing  face :  —  z«)  o?  cTttsv  lpodp'A(7a<;^  ij(Jr) 
yap    VTziipavji    rt    ■^fj.ipa(^    mazt    zara^«v^    aorov  ytvinOat. 

He  who  noted  that  so  precisely  had,  surely,  the 
II 


i62  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

delicacy  of  the  artist,  a  fastidious  eye  for  the 
subtleties  of  colour  as  soul  made  visibly  expressive. 
"  Poor  creature  as  I  am,"  says  the  Platonic  Socrates, 
in  the  Lysis,  concerning  another  youthful  blush, 
''  Poor  creature  as  I  am,  I  have  one  talent ;  I  can  5 
recognize,  at  first  sight,  the  lover  and  the  beloved." 

So  it  is  with  the  audible  world  also.     The  ex- 
quisite monotony  of  the  voice  of  the  great  sophist, 
for  example,  "  once  set  in  motion,  goes  ringing  on 
like  a  brazen  pot,  which  if  you  strike  it  continues  10 
to  sound  till  some  one  lays  his  hand  upon  it."  And 
if  the  delicacy  of  eye  and  ear,  so  also  the  keenness 
and  constancy  of  his  observation,  are  manifest  in 
those  elaborately  wrought   images  for  which   the 
careful  reader  lies  in  wait:  the  mutiny  of  the  sailors  15 
in  the  ship, —  ship  of  the  state,  or  of  one's  own  soul : 
the  echoes  and  beams  and  shadows  of  that  half- 
illuminated   cavern,   the   human   mind ;   the    caged 
birds  in  the    Thccctetus,  that   are   like    the   flighty, 
half-contained  notions  of  an  imperfectly  educated  20 
understanding.     Real  notions  are  to  be  ingrained 
by    persistent    thoroughness    of    the    **  dialectic " 
method,  as  if  by  conscientious  dyers.     He  makes 
us  stay  to  watch  such  dyers,  as  he  had  done,  busy 
with  their  purple   stuff ;   adding   as    it  were   ethic  25 
colour  to  what  he  sees  with  the  eye,  and  painting 
while  he  goes,  as  if  on  the  margin  of  his  high  philo- 
sophical discourse,  himself  scarcely  aware ;  as  the 
monkish  scribe  set  bird  or  flower,  with  so  much 
truth  of  earth,  in  the  blank  spaces  of  his  heavenly  30 
meditation. 

Now  Plato  is  one  for  whom  the  visible  world 
thus  "  reallv  exists  "  because  he  is  bv  nature  and 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  163 

before  all  things,  from  first  to  last,  unalterably  a 
lover.  In  that,  precisely,  lies  the  secret  of  the 
susceptible  and  diligent  eye,  the  so  sensitive  ear. 
The  central  interest  of  his  own  youth  —  of  his- 
5  profoundly  impressible  youth  —  as  happens  always 
with  natures  of  real  capacity,  gives  law  and  pattern 
to  all  that  succeeds  it.  Td  ipioTr/.d,  as  he  says, —  the 
experience,  the  discipline,  of  love,  had  been  that 
for  Plato ;  and,  as  love  must  of  necessity  deal  above 

10  all  with  visible  persons,  this  discipline  involved  an 
exquisite  culture  of  the  senses.  It  is  "  as  lovers 
use,"  that  he  is  ever  on  the  watch  for  those  dainty 
messages,  those  finer  intimations,  from  eye  and  ear. 
If  in  the  later  development  of  his  philosophy  the 

15  highest  sort  of  know^ledge  comes  to  seem  like  the 
knowledge  of  a  person,  the  relation  of  the  reason 
to  truth  like  the  commerce  of  one  person  with  an- 
other, the  peculiarities  of  personal  relationship  thus 
moulding  his  conception  of  the  properly  invisible 

20  world  of  ideas, —  this  is  partly  because,  for  a  lover, 
the  entire  visible  world,  its  hues  and  outline,  its 
attractiveness,  its  power  and  bloom,  must  have  as- 
sociated themselves  pre-eminently  with  the  power 
and  bloorr  of  visible  living  persons.     With  these, 

25  as  they  made  themselves  known  by  word  and 
glance  and  touch,  through  the  medium  of  the 
senses,  lay  the  forces,  which,  in  that  inexplicable 
tyranny  of  one  person  over  another,  shaped  the 
soul. 

30  Just  there,  then,  is  the  secret  of  Plato's  intimate 
concern  with,  his  power  over,  the  sensible  world, 
the  apprehensions  of  the  sensuous  faculty ;  he  is  a 
lover,  a  great  lover,  somewhat  after  the  manner 


i64  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

of  Dante.     For  him,  as  for  Dante,  in  the  impas- 
sioned glow  of  his  conceptions,  the  material  and 
the  spiritual  are  blent  and  fused  together.     While, 
in  that  fire  and  heat,  what  is  spiritual  attains  the 
definite  visibility  of  a  crystal,  what  is  material,  on  5 
the   other   hand,  will   lose  its   earthiness   and   im- 
purity.     It  is   of   the   amorous   temper,   therefore, 
you  must  think  in  connexion  with  Plato's  youth, — 
of  this,  amid  all  the  strength  of  the  genius  in  which 
it  is  so  large  a  constituent, —  indulging,  develop-  lo 
ing,  refining,  the  sensuous  capacities,  the  powers 
of  eve  and  ear,  of    the    fancy  also  which    can  re- 
fashion, of  the  speech  which  can  best  respond  to 
and   reproduce,   their  liveliest  presentments.     That 
is  why  when  Plato  speaks  of  visible  things  it's  as  15 
if  you  saw  them.     He  who  in  the  Symposium  de- 
scribes so  vividly  the  pathway,  the  ladder,  of  love, 
its  joyful   ascent  towards   a   more   perfect  beauty 
than  we  have  ever  yet  actually  seen,  by  way  of  a 
parallel  to  the  gradual  elevation  of  mind  towards  20 
perfect  knowledge,  knew  all  that,  we  may  be  sure  — 
rd  ipajTud  —  all  the  ways   of  lovers,  in  the  literal 
sense.     He  speaks  of  them  retrospectively  indeed, 
but  knows  well  what  he  is  talking  about.     Plato  " 
himself  had  not  been  always  a  mere  Platonic  lover ;  25 
was  rather,  naturally,  as  he  makes  Socrates  say  of 
himself,  y'lrrajv  rajv  7.aXa)v,  subject    to    the    influence 
of  fair  persons.     A  certain  penitential  colour  amid 
that  glow  of  fancy  and  expression,  hints  that  the 
final  harmony  of  his  nature  had  been  but  gradually  3° 
beaten   out,  and   invests  the  temperance,   actually 
so  conspicuous  in  his  own  nature,  with  the  charms 
of  a  patiently  elaborated  effect  of  art. 


THE  GENIUS  0}    PLATO  165 

For  we  must  remind  ourselves  just  here,  that, 
quite  naturally  also,  instinctively,  and  apart  from 
the  austere  influences  which  claimed  and  kept  his 
allegiance   later,   Plato,   with   a   kind   of  unimpas- 

5  sioned  passion,  was  a  lover  in  particular  of  Tem- 
perance ;  of  Temperance  too,  as  it  may  be  seen,  as 
a  visible  thing, —  seen  in  Charmides,  say!  in  that  I 
subdued  and  gray-eyed  loveliness,  "  clad  in  sober 
gray  " ;  or  in  those  youthful  athletes  which,  in  an- 

locient  marble,  reproduce  him  and  the  like  of  him 
with  sound,  firm  outlines,  such  as  Temperance  se- 
cures. Still,  that  some  more  luxurious  sense  of 
physical  beauty  had  at  one  time  greatly  disturbed 
him,   divided  him  against  himself,  we  may  judge 

^5  from  his  own  words  in  a  famous  passage  of  the 
Phcudrus  concerning  the  management,  the  so  diffi- 
cult management,  of  those  winged  steeds  of  the 
body,  which  is  the  chariot  of  the  soul. 

Puzzled,  in  some  degree,  Plato  seems  to  remain, 

20  not  merely  in  regard  to  the  higher  love  and  the 
lower.  Aphrodite  Urania  and  Aphrodite  Pandemus, 
as  he  distinguishes  them  in  the  Symposium;  nor 
merely  with  the  difficulty  of  arbitrating  between 
some  inward  beauty,  and  that  which  is  outward ; — 

25  with  the  odd  mixture  everywhere,  save  in  its  still 
unapprehended  but  eternal  essence,  of  the  beautiful 
with  what  is  otherwise ;  but  he  is  yet  more  harassed 
by  the  experience  (it  is  in  this  shape  that  the  world- 
old  puzzle  of  the  existence  of  evil  comes  to  him) 

30  that  even  to  the  truest  eyesight,  to  the  best  trained 
faculty  of  soul,  the  Beautiful  would  never  come  to 
seem  strictly  concentric  with  the  Good.  That 
seems  to  have  taxed  his  understanding  as  gravely 


■-i^ 


i66  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

as  it  had  tried  his  will,  and  he  was  glad  when  in 
the  mere  natural  course  of  years  he  was  become  at 
all  events  less  ardent  a  lover.  'Tis  he  is  the  au- 
thority for  what  Sophocles  had  said  on  the  happy 
decay  of  the  passions  as  age  advanced :  it  was  "  like  5 
being  set  free  from  service  to  a  band  of  madmen  "; 
as  his  own  distinguishing  note  is  tranquil  after- 
thought upon  this  conflict,  with  a  kind  of  envy  of 
the  almost  disembodied  old  age  of  Cephalus,  who 
quotes  that  saying  of  Sophocles  amid  his  placid  10 
sacrificial  doings.  Connect  with  this  quiet  scene, 
and  contrast  with  the  luxuriant  power  of  the 
Phcvdrus  and  the  Symposium,  what,  for  a  certain 
touch  of  later  mysticism  in  it,  we  might  call  Plato's 
evening  prayer,  in  the  ninth  book  of  The  Republic. —  15 

"When  any  one,  being  healthfully  and  temperately  dis- 
posed towards  himself,  turns  to  sleep,  having  stirred  the 
reasonable  part  of  him  with  a  feast  of  fair  thoughts  and 
high  problems,  being  come  to  full  consciousness,  himself 
with  himself;  and  has,  on  the  other  hand,  committed  the 
element  of  desire  neither  to  appetite,  nor  to  surfeiting,  to 
the  end  that  this  may  slumber  well,  and,  by  its  pain  or 
pleasure,  cause  no  trouble  to  that  part  which  is  best  in 
him,  but  may  suffer  it,  alone  by  itself,  in  its  pure  essence, 
to  behold  and  aspire  towards  some  object,  and  apprehend 
what  it  knows  not,  —  some  event,  of  the  past,  it  may  be.  or 
something  that  now  is,  or  will  be  hereafter;  and  in  like 
manner  has  soothed  hostile  impulse,  so  that,  falling  to  no 
angry  thoughts  against  any,  he  goes  not  to  rest  with  a 
troubled  spirit,  but  with  those  two  parts  at  peace  within, 
and  with  that  third  part,  wherein  reason  is  engendered,  on 
the  move:  —  you  know,  I  think,  that  in  sleep  of  this  sort 
he  lays  special  hold  on  truth,  and  then  least  of  all  is  there 
lawlessness  in  the  visions  of  his  dreams." 

For  Plato,  being  then  about  twenty-eight  years 
old,  had  listened  to  the  ''  Apology  "  of  Socrates ; 
had  heard  from  them  all  that  others  had  heard  or 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  167 

seen  of  his  last  hours;  himself  perhaps  actually 
witnessed  those  last  hours.  ''  Justice  itself  "  — 
the  "  absolute  "  Justice  —  had  then  become  almost 
a  visible  object,  and  had  greatly  solemnised  him. 

5  The  rich  young  man,  rich  also  in  intellectual  gifts, 
who  might  have  become  (we  see  this  in  the  adroit 
management  of  his  written  work)  the  most  brilliant 
and  effective  of  Sophists ;  who  might  have  de- 
veloped   dialogues    into    plays,    tragedy,    perhaps 

10  comedy,  as  he  cared ;  whose  sensuous  or  graphic 
capacity  might  have  made  him  the  poet  of  an 
Odyssey,  a  Sappho,  or  a  Catullus,  or,  say !  just  such 
a  poet  as,  just  because  he  was  so  attractive,  would 
have  been  disfranchised  in  the   Perfect  City ;  was 

15  become  the  creature  of  an  immense  seriousness,  ot 
a  fully  adult  sense,  unusual  in  Greek  perhaps  even 
more  than  in  Roman  writers,  "  of  the  weightiness 
of  the  matters  concerning  which  he  has  to  dis- 
course, and  of  the  frailty  of  man."     He  inherits, 

20  alien  as  they  might  be  to  certain  powerful  in- 
fluences in  his  own  temper,  alike  the  sympathies 
and  the  antipathies  of  that  strange,  delightful 
teacher,  who  had  given  him  (most  precious  of 
gifts !)  an  inexhaustible  interest  in  himself :  he  in- 

25  herits,  in  this  way,  a  preference  for  those  trying 
severities  of  thought  which  are  characteristic  of  the 
Eleatic  school ;  an  antagonism  to  the  successful 
Sophists  of  the  day,  in  whom  the  old  sceptical 
"  philosophy  of  motion  "  seemed  to  be  renewed  as 

30  a  theory  of  morals ;  and  henceforth,  in  short,  this 
master  of  visible  things,  this  so  ardent  lover,  will 
be  a  lover  of  the  invisible,  with, —  Yes!  there  it  is 
constantly,  in  the  Platonic  dialogues,  not  to  be  ex- 


i68  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

plained  away  —  with  a  certain  asceticism,  amid  all 
the  varied  opulence,  of  sense,  of  speech  and  fancy, 
natural  to  Plato's  genius. 

The  lover,  who  is  become  a  lover  of  the  invisible, 
but  still  a  lover,  and  therefore,  literally,  a  seer,  of  5 
it,  carrying  an  elaborate  cultivation  of  the  bodily 
senses,  of  eye  and  ear,  their  natural  force  and  ac 
quired  fineness  —  gifts  akin  properly  to  ra  ipcurcxd 
as  he  says,  to  the  discipline  of  sensuous  love  —  into 
the  world  of  intellectual  abstractions ;  seeing  and  la 
hearing    there    too,    associating    for    ever    all    the 
imagery  of  things  seen  with  the  conditions  of  what 
primarily  exists  only  for  the  mind,  filling  that  "  hol- 
low land  "  with  delightful  colour  and  form,  as  if 
now  at  last  the  mind  were  veritably  dealing  with  15 
living  people  there,  living  people  who  play  upon 
us   through    the    affinities,   the  repulsion  and    at- 
traction, of  persons  towards   one   another,   all  the 
magnetism,  as  we  call  it,  of  actual  human  friend- 
ship  or  love:  —  There,   is  the   formula  of   Plato's  20 
genius,    the    essential    condition    of    the    specially 
Platonic  temper,  of  Platonism.    And  his  style,  be- 
cause it  really  is  Plato's  style,  conforms  to,  and  in 
^  its  turn  promotes  in  others,  that  mental  situation. 
I  He  breaks  as  it  w^ere  visible  colour  into  the  very  '^S 
I  texture  of  his  work:  his  vocabulary,  the  very  stufif 
he  manipulates,  has  its  delightful  aesthetic  qualities ; 
almost  every  word,  one  might  say,  its  figurative 
value.     And   yet  no  one  perhaps  has  with  equal 
power    literally    sounded    the    unseen    depths    of  3° 
thought,  and,  with  what  may  be  truly  called  **  sub- 
stantial "  word  and  phrase,  given  locality  there  to 
the  mere  adumbrations,  the  dim  hints  and  surmise. 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  169 

of  the  speculative  mind.  For  him,  all  gifts  of 
sense  and  intelligence  converge  in  one  supreme 
faculty  of  theoretic  vision,  Oetopta,  the  imaginative 
reason. 

5  To  trace  that  thread  of  physical  colour,  entwined 
throughout,  and  multiplied  sometimes  into  large  ta- 

»  pestried  figures,  is  the  business,  the  enjoyment,  of 
the  student  of  the  Dialogues,  as  he  reads  them. 
For  this  or  that  special  literary  quality  indeed  we 

.0  may  go  safely  by  preference  to  this  or  that  particu- 
lar i^ialogue;  to  the  Gorgias,  for  instance,  for  the 
readiest  Attic  wit,  and  a  manly  practical  sense  in 
the  handling-  cf  philosophy ,'  to  the  Charmides,  for 
something  like  the  effect  of  sculpture  in  modelling 

J5  a  person ;  to  the  Timceus,  for  certain  brilliant  chro- 
matic effects.  Yet  who  that  reads  the  ThecEtetus, 
or  the  Phcudrus,  or  the  seventh  book  of  The  Repub- 
lic, can  doubt  Plato's  gitt  in  precisely  the  opposite 
direction  ;  that  gift  of  soundmg  by  words  the  depths 

2cof  thought,  a  plastic  power  literally,  moulding  to 
term  and  phrase  what  might  have  seemed  in  its  very 
nature  too  impalpable  and  abstruse  to  lend  itself, 
in  any  case,  to  language?  He  gives  names  to  the 
invisible  acts,  processes,  creations,  of  abstract  mmd, 

25  as  masterly,  as  efficiently,  as  Adam  himself  to  the 
visible  living  creations  of  old.  As  Plato  speaks  of 
them,  we  might  say,  those  abstractions  too  become 
visible  living  creatures.  We  read  the  speculative 
poetry  of  Wordsworth,  or  Tennyson ;  and  we  may 

30  observe  that  a  great  metaphysical  force  has  come 
into  language  which  is  by  nO'  means  purely  techni- 
cal or  scholastic ;  what  a  help  such  language  is  to 
the  understanding,  to  a  real  hold  over  the  things. 


170  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

the  thoughts,  the  mental  processes,  those  words  de- 
note ;  a  vocabulary  to  which  thought  freely  commits 
itself,  trained,  stimulated,  raised,  thereby,  towards 
a  high  level  of  abstract  conception,  surely  to  the  in- 
crease of  our  general  intellectual  powers.     That,  of  5 
course,  is  largely  due  to  Plato's  successor,  to  Aris- 
totle's life-long  labour    of  analysis  and    definition, . 
and  to  his  successors  the  Schoolmen,  with  their  sys- 
tematic culture  of  a  precise  instrument  for  the  regis- 
tration, by  the  analytic  intellect,  of  its  own  subtlest  10 
movements.     But  then,  Aristotle,  himself  the  first 
of  the  Schoolmen,  had  succeeded  Plato,  and  did  but 
formulate,  as  a  terminology  "  of  art,"  as  technical 
language,  what  for  Plato  is  still  vernacular,  original, 
personal,  the  product  in  him  of  an  instinctive  imagi-  15 
native  power, —  a  sort  of  visual  power,  but  causing 
others  also  to  see  what  is  matter  of  original  intui- 
tion for  him. 

From  the  first,  in  fact,  our  faculty  of  thinking  is 
limited   by   our   command   of  speech.     Now   it  is  20 
straight  from  Plato's  lips,  as  if  in  natural  conversa- 
tion, that  the  language  came,  in  which  the  mind  has 
ever  since  been  discoursing  with  itself  concerning 
itself,  in  that  inward  dialogue,  which  is  the  "  active 
principle  "  of  the  dialectic  method  as  an  instrument  25 
for  the  attainment  of  truth.    For,  the  essential,  or 
dynamic,  dialogue,  is  ever  that  dialogue  of  the  mind 
with  itself,  which    any  converse  with  Socrates    or 
Plato  does  but  promote.    The  very  words  of  Plato, 
then,  challenge  us  straightway  to  larger  and  finer  30 
apprehension  of  the  processes  of  our  own  minds; 
are  themselves  a  discovery  in  the  sphere  of  mind. 
It  was  he  made  us  freemen  of  those  solitary  places, 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  171 

so  trying  yet  so  attractive :  so  remote  and  high,  they 
seem,  yet  are  naturally  so  close  to  us ;  he  peopled 
them  with  intelligible  forms.  Nay,  more !  By  his  pe- 
culiar gift  of  verbal  articulation  he  anticipated  the 

5  mere  hollow  spaces  which  a  knowledge,  then  merely 
potential,  and  an  experience  still  to  come,  would 
one  day  occupy.  And  so,  those  who  cannot  admit 
his  actual  speculative  results,  precisely  his  report  on 
the    invisible    theoretic   world,    have    been    to    the 

10  point  sometimes,  in  their  objection,  that  by  sheer 
effectiveness  of  abstract  language,  he  gave  an  illu- 
sive air  of  reality  or  substance  to  the  mere  nonen- 
tities of  metaphysic  hypothesis, —  of  a  mind  trying 
to  feed  itself  on  its  own  emptiness. 

15  Just  there, —  in  the  situation  of  one,  shaped,  by 
combining  nature  and  circumstance,  into  a  seer  who 
has  a  sort  of  sensuous  love  of  the  un-seen  —  is  the 
paradox  of  Plato^s  genius,  and  therefore,  always,  of 
Platonism,  of   the  Platonic  temper.     His    aptitude 

20  for  things  visible,  his  gift  of  words,  empower  him 
to  express,  as  if  for  the  eyes,  what  except  to  the 
eye  of  the  mind  is  strictly  invisible, —  what  an  ac- 
quired asceticism  induces  him  to  rank  above,  and 
sometimes,  in  terms  of  harshest  dualism,  oppose  to, 

25  the  sensible  world.  Plato  is  to  be  interpreted  not 
merely  by  his  antecedents,  by  the  influence  upon 
him  of  those  who  preceded  him,  but  by  his  suc- 
cessors, by  the  temper,  the  intellectual  alliances,  of 
those  who  directly  or  indirectly  have  been  sympa- 

3othetic  with  him.  Now  it  is  noticeable  that,  at  first 
sight  somewhat  incongruously,  a  certain  number  ot 
Manicheans  have  always  been  of  his  company ;  peo- 
ple who  held  that  matter  was  evil.     Pointing  sig- 


172  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

nificantly  to  an  unmistakable  vein  of  Manichean,  or 
Puritan  sentiment  actually  there  in  the  Platonic 
Dialogues,  these  rude  companions  or  successors  of 
his,  carry  us  back  to  his  great  predecessor,  to  So- 
crates, whose  personal  influence  had  so  strongly  en-  5 
forced  on  Plato  the  severities,  moral  and  intellectual, 
alike  of  Parmenides  and  of  the  Pythagoreans.  The 
cold  breath  of  a  harshly  abstract,  a  too  incorporeal 
philosophy,  had-  blown,  like  an  east  wind,  on  that 
last  depressing  day  in  the  prison-cell  of  Socrates ;  10 
and  the  venerable  commonplaces  then  put  forth,  in 
which  an  overstrained  pagan  sensuality  seems  to 
be  reacting,  to  be  taking  vengeance,  on  itself, 
turned  now  sick  and  suicidal,  will  lose  none  of 
their  weight  with  Plato :  —  That  "  all  who  rightly  15 
touch  philosophy,  study  nothing  else  than  to  die, 
and  to  be  dead/' —  That  ''  the  soul  reasons  best, 
w^hen,  as  much  as  possible,  it  comes  to  be  alone 
with  itself,  bidding  good-bye  to  the  body,  and,  to 
the  utmost  of  its  power,  rejecting  communion  with  20 
it,  with  the  very  touch  of  it,  aiming  at  what  u."  It 
was,  in  short,  as  if  for  the  soul  to  have  come  into  a 
human  body  at  all,  had  been  the  seed  of  disease  in 
it,  the  beginning  of  its  own  proper  death. 

As  for  any  adornments  or  provision  for  this  body,  25 
the  master  had  declared  that  a  true  philosopher  as 
such  would  make  as  little  of  them  as  possible.  To 
those  young  hearers,  the  words  of  Socrates  may 
well  have  seemed  to  anticipate,  not  the  visible 
world  he  had  then  delineated  in  glowing  colour  as  30 
if  for  the  bodily  eye.  but  only  the  chilling  influence 
of  the  hemlock ;  and  it  was  because  Plato  was  only 
half  convinced  of  the  Manichean  or  Puritan  element 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  I73 

in  his  master's  doctrine,  or  rather  was  in  contact 
with  it  on  one  side  only  of  his  complex  and  genial 
nature,  that  Platonism  became  possible,  as  a  tem- 
per for  which,  in  strictness,  the  opposition  of  matter 
5  to  spirit  has  no  ultimate  or  real  existence.  Not  to 
be  "  pure  "  from  the  body,  but  to  identify  it,  in  its 
utmost  fairness,  with  the  fair  soul,  by  a  gymnastic 
"  fused  in  music,"  became,  from  first  to  last,  the 
aim  of  education  as  he  conceived  it.     That  the  body 

lo  is  but  "  a  hindrance  to  the  attainment  of  philoso- 
phy, if  one  takes  it  along  with  one  as  a  companion 
in  one's  search  " —  a  notion  which  Christianity,  at 
least  in  its  later  though  wholly  legitimate  develop- 
ments, will  correct  —  can  hardly  have  been  the  last 

15  thought  of  Plato  himself  on  quitting  it.  He  opens 
his  door  indeed  to  those  austere  monitors.  They  cor- 
rect the  sensuous  richness  of  his  genius,  but  could 
not  suppress  it.  The  sensuous  lover  becomes  a 
lover  of  the  invisible,  but  still  a  lover,  after  his  ear- 

20  Her  pattern,  carrying  into  the  world  of  intellectual 
vision,  of  dswpia,  all  the  associations  of  the  actual 
world  of  sight.  Some  of  its  invisible  realities  he 
can  all  but  see  with  the  bodily  eye ;  the  absolute 
Temperance,  in  the  person  of  the  youthful  Char- 

25  mides ;  the  absolute  Righteousness,  in  the  person 
of  the  dying  Socrates.  Yes,  truly!  all  true  knowl- 
edge will  be  like  the  knowledge  of  a  person,  of  liv- 
ing persons,  and  truth,  for  Plato,  in  spite  of  his 
Socratic  asceticism,  to  the  last,  something  to  look 

30  at.  The  eyes  which  had  noted  physical  things,  so 
finely,  vividly,  continuously,  would  be  still  at  work ; 
and,  Plato  thus  qualifying  the  Manichean  or  Puri- 
tan  element  in  Socrates  by  his  own  capacity  for 


174  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

the  world  of  sense,  Platonism  has  contributed 
largely,  has  been  an  immense  encouragement 
towards,  the  redemption  of  matter,  of  the  world  of 
sense,  by  art,  by  all  right  education,  by  the  creeds 
and  worship  of  the  Christian  Church, —  towards  5 
the  vindication  of  the  dignity  of  the  body. 

It  was  doubtless  because  Plato  was  an  excellent 
scholar  that  he  did  not  begin  to  teach  others  till 
he  was  more  than  forty  years  old, — one  of  the  great 
scholars  of  the  world,  with  Virgil  and  Milton :  by  10 
which  is  implied  that,  possessed  of  the  inborn 
genius,  of  those  natural  powers,  which  sometimes 
bring  with  them  a  certain  defiance  of  rule,  of  the 
intellectual  habits  of  others,  he  acquires,  by  way  of 
habit  and  rule,  all  that  can  be  taught  and  learned;  ^5 
and  what  is  thus  derived  from  others  by  docility 
and  discipline,  what  is  range,  comes  to  have  in  him, 
and  in  his  work,  an  equivalent  weight  with  what  is 
unique,  impulsive,  underivable.  Raphael  —  Ra- 
phael, as  you  see  him  in  the  Blenheim  Madonna,  is  20 
a  supreme  example  of  such  scholarship  in  the 
sphere  of  art.  Born  of  a  romantically  ancient  fam- 
ily, understood  to  be  the  descendant  of  Solon  him- 
self, Plato  had  been  in  early  youth  a  writer  of  verse. 
That  he  turned  to  a  more  vigorous,  though  pedes-  ^5 
trian  mode  of  writing,  was  perhaps  an  efifect  of  his 
corrective  intercourse  with  Socrates,  through  some 
of  the  most  important  years  of  his  life, —  from 
twenty  to  twenty-eight. 

He  belonged  to  what  was  just  then  ihe  discon-  3° 
tented  class,  and  might  well  have  taken  refuge  from 
active  political  life  in  political  ideals,  or  in  a  kind 
of  self-imposed  exile.     A  traveller,  adventurous  for 


THE  GENIUS  OF  PLATO  175 

that  age,  he  certainly  became.  After  the  Lehr- 
jahre,  the  Wander- jahre!  —  all  round  the  Mediter- 
ranean coasts  as  far  west  as  Sicily.  Think  of  what 
all  that  must  have  meant  just  then,  for  eyes  which 
5  could  see!  If  those  journeys  had  begun  in  angry 
flight  from  home,  it  was  for  purposes  of  self-im- 
provement they  were  continued :  the  delightful  fruit 
of  them  is  evident  in  what  he  writes;  and  finding 
him  in  friendly  intercourse  with  Dionysius  the  elder, 

10  with  Dio,  and  Dionysius  the  younger,  at  the  pol- 
ished court  of  Syracuse,  we  may  understand  they 
were  a  search  also  for  "  the  philosophic  king,"  per- 
haps for  the  opportune  moment  of  realising  "the 
ideal  state."     In  that  case,  his  quarrels  with  those 

■'  5  capricious  tyrants  show  that  he  was  disappointed. 
For  the  future  he  sought  no  more  to  pass  beyond 
the  charmed  theoretic  circle,  "  speaking  wisdom," 
as  was  said  of  Pythagoras,  only  "  among  the  per- 
fect."    He  returns  finally  to  Athens ;  and  there,  in 

-°  the  quiet  precincts  of  the  Acadermis,  which  has  left 
a  somewhat  dubious  name  to  places  where  people 
come  to  be  taught  or  to  teach,  founds,  not  a  state, 
nor  even  a  brotherhood,  but  only  the  first  college, 
with  something  of  a  common  life,  of  communism 

25  on  that  small  scale,  with  Aristotle  for  one  of  its 
scholars,  with  its  chapel,  its  gardens,  its  library 
with  the  authentic  text  of  his  Dialogues  upon  the 
shelves :  we  may  just  discern  the  sort  of  place, 
through  the  scantiest  notices.     His  reign  was  after 

3^  all  to  be  in  his  writings.  Plato  himself  does  noth- 
ing in  them  to  retard  the  eflfacement  which  mere 
time  brings  to  persons  and  their  abodes ;  and  there 
had  been  that,  moreover,  in  his  own  temper,  which 


176  SELECTIOXS  FROM  PATER 

promotes  self-effacement.  Yet  as  he  left  it,  the 
place  remained  for  centuries,  according  to  his  will, 
to  its  original  use.  What  he  taught  through  the 
remaining  forty  years  of  his  life,  the  method  of  that 
teaching,  whether  it  was  less  or  more  esoteric  than  5 
the  teaching  of  the  extant  Dialogues,  is  but  matter 
of  surmise.  Writers,  who  in  their  day  might  still 
have  said  much  we  should  have  liked  to  hear,  give 
us  little  but  old,  quasi-supernatural  stories,  told  as  if 
they  had  been  new  ones,  about  him.  The  year  of  10 
his  birth  fell,  according  to  some,  in  the  very  year 
of  the  death  of  Pericles  (a  significant  date !)  but  is 
not  precisely  ascertainable :  nor  is  the  year  of  his 
death,  nor  its  manner.  Scribens  est  mortuns,  says 
Cicero  :  after  the  manner  of  a  true  scholar,  "  he  died  i5 
pen  in  hand." 

(From  the  Contemporary  Review,  February,  1892.     Plato 
and  Platonism,  1895.) 


Zbc  Hge  of  Htbletic  iprtsemcn 

A  Chapter  in  Greek  Art 

It  is  pleasant  when,  looking  at  medieval  sculp- 
ture, we  are  reminded  of  that  of  Greece ;  pleasant 
likewise,  conversely,  in  the  study  of  Greek  work  to 
be  put  on  thoughts  of  the  Middle  Age.  To  the  re- 
5  fined  intelligence,  it  would  seem,  there  is  something 
attractive  in  complex  expression  as  such.  The 
Marbles  of  uSgina,  then,  may  remind  us  of  the  Mid- 
dle Age  where  it  passes  into  the  early  Renaissance, 
of  its  most  tenderly  finished  warrior-tombs  of  West- 

lo  minster  or  in  Florence.  A  less  mature  phase  of 
medieval  art  is  recalled  to  our  fancy  by  a  primitive 
Greek  work  in  the  Museum  of  Athens,  Hermes, 
bearing  a  ram,  a  little  one,  upon  its  shoulders.  He 
bears  it  thus,  had  borne  it  around  the  walls  of  Tana- 

15  gra,  as  its  citizens  told,  by  way  of  purifying  that 
place  from  the  plague,  and  brings  to  mind,  of 
course,  later  images  of  the  "  Good  Shepherd."  It 
is  not  the  subject  of  the  work,  however,  but  its 
style,  that  sets  us  down  in  thought  before  some 

20  Gothic  cathedral  front.  Suppose  the  Hermes  Krio- 
phoriis  lifted  into  one  of  those  empty  niches,  and 
the  archaeologist  will  inform  you  rightly,  as  at  Aux- 
erre,  or  Wells,  of  Italian  influence,  perhaps  of  Ital- 
ian workmen,  and  along  with  them  indirect  old 
5  Greek  influence  coming  northwards ;  while  the  con- 
noisseur assures  us  that  all  good  art,  at  its  respect- 
ive stages  of  development,  is  in  essential  qualities 
12  177 


178  SELECTIONS  PROM  PATER 

everywhere  alike.  It  is  observed,  as  a  note  of  im- 
perfect skill,  that  in  that  carved  block  of  stone  the 
animal  is  insufficiently  detached  from  the  shoulder* 
of  its  bearer.  Again,  how  precisely  Gothic  is  the 
effect!  Its  very  limitation  as  sculpture  emphasises 5 
the  function  of  the  thing  as  an  architectural  orna- 
ment. •  And  the  student  of  the  Middle  Age,  if  it 
came  within  his  range,  would  be  right  in  so  esteem- 
ing it.  Hieratic,  stiff  and  formal,  if  you  will,  there 
is  a  knowledge  of  the  human  body  in  it  neverthe-io 
less,  of  the  body,  and  of  the  purely  animal  soul 
therein,  full  of  the  promise  of  what  is  coming  in 
the  chapter  of  Greek  art  which  may  properly  be 
entitled,  "  The  Age  of  Athletic  Prizemen." 

That  rude  image,  a  work  perhaps  of  Calamis  ofir 
shadowy  fame,  belongs  to  a  phase  of  art  still  in 
grave-clothes  or  swaddling-bands,  still  strictly  sub- 
ordinate to  religious  or  other  purposes  not  imme- 
diately its  own.     It  had  scarcely  to  wait  for  the 
next  generation  to  be  superseded,  and  we  need  not  20 
wonder  that  but  little  of  it  remains.     But  that  it 
was  a  widely  active  phase  of  art,  with  all  the  vigour 
of  local  varieties,  is  attested  by  another  famous  ar- 
chaic monument,  too  full  of  a  kind  of  sacred  po- 
etry to  be  passed  by.     The  reader  does  not  need  to  2s 
be  reminded  that  the  Greeks,  vivid  as  was  their 
consciousness  of  this  life,  cared  much  always  for 
the  graves  of  the  dead;  that  to  be  cared  for,  to  be 
honoured,  in  one's  grave,  to  have  roti^o^  dpL<pinoXo(^, 
a  frequented  tomb,  as  Pindar  says,  was  a  consider- 30 
able  motive  with  them,  even  among  the  young.    In 
the  study  of  its  funeral  monuments  we  might  in- 
deed follow  closely  enough  the  general  develop- 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         179 

ment  of  art  in  Greece  from  beginning  to  end.  The 
carved  slab  of  the  ancient  shepherd  of  Orchomenus, 
with  his  dog  and  rustic  staff,  the  stele  of  the  ancient 
man-at-arms    signed   "  Aristocles,"   rich   originally 

5  with  colour  and  gold  and  fittings  of  bronze,  are 
among  the  few  still  visible  pictures,  or  portraits, 
it  may  be,  of  the  earliest  Greek  life.  Compare 
them,  compare  their  expression,  for  a  moment,  with 
the  deeply  incised  tombstones  of  the  Brethren  of  St. 

10  Francis  and  their  clients,  which  still  roughen  the 
pavement  of  Santa  Croce  at  Florence,  and  recall  the 
varnished  polychrome  decoration  of  those  Greek 
monuments  in  connexion  with  the  worn-out  bla- 
zonry of  the  funeral  brasses  of  England  and  Fland- 

15  ers.  The  Shepherd,  the  Hoplite,  begin  a  series  con- 
tinuous to  the  era  of  full  Attic  mastery  in  its  gen- 
tlest mood,  with  a  large  and  varied  store  of  memo- 
rials of  the  dead,  which,  not  so  strangely  as  it  may 
seem  at  first  sight,  are   like  selected  pages   from 

20  daily  domestic  life.  See,  for  instance,  at  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  Trypho,  "  the  son  of  Eutychus,"  one 
of  the  very  pleasantest  human  likenesses  there, 
though  it  came  from  a  cemetery  —  a  son  it  was 
hard  to  leave  in  it  at  nineteen  or  twenty.     With 

25  all  the  suppleness,  the  delicate  muscularity,  of  the 
flower  of  his  youth,  his  handsome  face  sweetened 
by  a  kind  and  simple  heart,  in  motion,  surely,  he 
steps  forth  from  some  shadowy  chamber,  sfrigil  in 
hand,  as  of  old,  and  with  his  coarse  towel  or  cloak 

30  of  monumental  drapery  over  one  shoulder.  But 
whither  precisely,  you  may  ask,  and  as  what,  is  he 
moving  there  in  the  doorway?  Well!  in  effect,  cer- 
tainly, it  is  the  memory  of  the  dead  lad,  emerging 


i8o  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

thus  from  his  tomb, —  the  still  active  soul,  or  per- 
manent thought,  of  him,  as  he  most  liked  to  be. 

The  Harpy  Tomb,  so  called  from  its  mysterious 
winged  creatures  with  human  faces,  carrying  the 
little  shrouded  souls  of  the  dead,  is  a  work  many  5 
generations   earlier  than   that   graceful   m.onument 
of  Trypho.     It  was  from  an  ancient  cemetery  at 
Xanthus  in  Lycia  that  it  came  to  the  British  Mu- 
seum.   The  Lycians  were  not  a  Greek  people ;  but, 
as  happened  even  with  ''barbarians"  dwelling  on  10 
the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  they  became  lovers  of  the 
Hellenic  culture,  and  Xanthus,  their  capital,  as  may 
be  judged  from  the  beauty  of  its  ruins,  managed 
to  have  a  considerable  portion  in  Greek  art,  though 
infusing  it  with  a  certain  Asiatic  colour.    The  fru-15 
gaily  designed  frieze  of  the  Harpy  Tomb,  in  the 
lowest  possible  relief,   might  fairly  be  placed  be- 
tween the  monuments  of  Assyria  and  those  primi- 
tive  Greek   works   among  which   it   now   actually 
stands.    The  stififly  ranged  figures  in  any  other  than  20 
strictly   archaic   work   would  seem   affected.      But 
what  an  undercurrent  of  refined  sentiment,  presum- 
ably not  Asiatic,  not  "  barbaric,"  lifting  those  who 
felt  thus  about  death  so  early  into  the  main  stream 
of  Greek  humanity,  and  to  a  level  of  visible  refine- 25 
ment  in  execution  duly  expressive  of  it ! 

In  that  old  burial-place  of  Xanthus,  then,  a  now 
nameless  family,  or  a  single  bereaved  member  of  it, 
represented  there  as  a  diminutive  figure  crouching 
on  the  earth  in  sorrow,  erected  this  monument,  so  30 
full  of  family  sentiment,  and  of  so  much  value  as 
illustrating  what  is  for  us  a  somewhat  empty  period 
in  the  history  of  Greek  art,  strictly  so  called.     Like 


THE  AGE  OE  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         i8i 

the  less  conspicuously  adorned  tombs  around  It, 
like  the  tombs  in  Homer,  it  had  the  form  of  a  tower 
— ■  a  square  tower  about  twenty-four  feet  high,  hol- 
lowed at  the  top  into  a  small  chamber,  for  the  re- 
5  ception,  through  a  little  doorway,  of  the  urned  ashes 
of  the  dead.  Four  sculptured  slabs  were  placed  at 
this  level  on  the  four  sides  of  the  tower  in  the  man- 
ner of  a  frieze.  I  said  that  the  winged  creatures 
with  human  faces  carry  the  little  souls  of  the  dead. 

loThe  interpretation  of  these  mystic  imageries  is,  in 
truth,  debated.  But  in  the  face  of  them,  and  remem- 
bering how  the  sculptors  and  glass-painters  of  the 
Middle  Age  constantly  represented  the  souls  of  the 
dead  as  tiny  bodies,  one  can  hardly  doubt  as  to  the 

15  meaning  of  these  particular  details  which,  repeated 
on  every  side,  seem  to  give  the  key-note  of  the 
whole  composition.  Those  infernal,  or  celestial, 
birds,  indeed,  are  not  true  to  what  is  understood  to 
be  the  harpy  form.     Call  them  sirens,  rather.     Peo- 

20  pie,  and  not  only  old  people,  as  you  know,  appear 
sometimes  to  have  been  quite  charmed  away  by 
what  dismays  most  of  us.  The  tiny  shrouded 
figures  which  the  sirens  carry  are  carried  very  ten- 
derly, and  seem  to  yearn  in  their  turn  towards  those 

25  kindly  nurses  as  they  pass  on  their  way  to  a  new 
world.  Their  small  stature,  as  I  said,  does  not 
prove  them  infants,  but  only  new-born  into  that 
other  life,  and  contrasts  their  helplessness  with  the 
powers,  the    great    presences,  now    around    them. 

30  A  cow,  far  enough  from  Myron's  famous  illusive 
animal,  suckles  her  calf.  She  is  one  of  almost  any 
number  of  artistic  symbols  of  new-birth,  of  the  re- 
newal of  life,  drawn  from  a  world  which  is,  after  all, 


i82  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

so  full  of  it.  On  one  side  sits  enthroned,  as  some 
have  thought,  the  Goddess  of  Death ;  on  the  oppo- 
site side  the  Goddess  of  Life,  with  her  flowers  and 
fruit.  Towards  her  three  young  maidens  are  ad- 
vancing—  were  they  still  alive  thus,  graceful,  vir-5 
ginal,  with  their  long,  plaited  hair,  and  long,  deli- 
cately-folded tunics,  looking  forward  to  carry  on 
their  race  into  the  future  ?  —  and  presented  sever- 
ally, on  the  other  sides  of  the  dark  hollow  within, 
three  male  persons  —  a  young  man,  an  old  man,  and  lo 
a  boy  —  seem  to  be  bringing  home,  somewhat  wear- 
ily, to  their  "  long  home,"  the  young  man,  his  ar- 
mour, the  boy,  and  the  old  man,  like  old  Socrates, 
the  mortuary  cock,  as  they  approach  some  shadowy, 
ancient  deity  of  the  tomb,  or  it  may  be  the  throned  15 
impersonation  of  their  '*  fathers  of  old."  The  mar- 
ble surface  was  coloured,  at  least  in  part,  with  fix- 
tures of  metal  here  and  there.  The  designer,  who- 
ever he  may  have  been,  was  possessed  certainly  of 
some  tranquillising  second  thoughts  concerning  20 
death,  which  may  well  have  had  their  value  for 
mourners ;  and  he  has  expressed  those  thoughts,  if 
lispingly,  yet  with  no  faults  of  commission,  with  a 
befitting  grace,  and,  in  truth,  at  some  points,  with 
something  already  of  a  really  Hellenic  definition  25 
and  vigour.  He  really  speaks  to  us  in  his  work, 
through  his  symbolic  and  imitative  figures, —  speaks 
to  our  intelligence  persuasively. 

The  surviving  thought  of  the  lad  Trypho,  return- 
ing from  his  tomb  to  the  living,  was  of  athletic  char- 30 
acter;  how  he  was  and  looked  when  in  the  flower 
of  his  strength.     And  it  is  not  of  the  dead  but  of 
the  living,  who  look  and  are  as  he,  that  the  artistic 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         183 

genius  of  this  period  is  full.  It  is  a  period,  truly, 
not  of  battles,  such  as  those  commemorated  in  the 
Marbles  of  ^gina,  but  of  more  peaceful  contests  — 
at  Olympia,  at  the  Isthmus,  at  Delphi  —  the  glo- 
5  ries  of  which  Pindar  sang  in  language  suggestive 
of  a  sort  of  metallic  beauty,  firmly  cut  and  em- 
bossed, like  crowns  of  wild  olive,  of  parsley  and 
bay,  in  crisp  gold.  First,  however,  it  had  been 
necessary  that  Greece  should  win  its  liberty,  po- 

lolitical  standing-ground,  and  a  really  social  air  to 
breathe  in,  with  development  of  the  youthful  limbs. 
Of  this  process  Athens  was  the  chief  scene;  and 
the  earliest  notable  presentment  of  humanity  by 
Athenian  art  was  in  celebration  of  those  who  had 

15  vindicated  liberty  with  their  lives  —  two  youths 
again,  in  a  real  incident,  which  had,  however,  the 
quality  of  a  poetic  invention,  turning,  as  it  did,  on 
that  ideal  or  romantic  friendship  which  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  Greeks. 

20  With  something,  perhaps,  of  hieratic  convention, 
yet  presented  as  they  really  were,  as  friends  and  ad- 
mirers loved  to  think  of  them,  Harmodius  -and  Aris- 
togeiton  stood,  then,  soon  after  their  heroic  death, 
side  by  side  in  bronze,  the  work  of  Antenor,  in  a 

25  way  not  to  be  forgotten,  when_,  thirty  years  after- 
wards, a  foreign  tyrant,  Xerxes,  carried  them  away 
to  Persia.  Kritios  and  Nesiotes  were,  therefore,  em- 
ployed for  a  reproduction  of  them,  which  would 
naturally  be  somewhat  more  advanced  in  style.    In 

30  its  turn  this  also  disappeared.  The  more  curious 
student,  however,  would  still  fancy  he  saw  the  trace 
of  it  —  of  that  copy,  or  of  the  original,  afterwards 
restored  to  Athens  —  here  or  there,  on  vase  or  coin. 


i84  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

But  in  fact  the  very  images  of  the  heroic  youths 
were  become  but  ghosts,  haunting  the  story  of 
Greek  art,  till  they  found  or  seemed  to  find  a  body 
once  more  when,  not  many  years  since,  an  acute 
observer  detected,  as  he  though,  in  a  remarkable  5 
pair  of  statues  in  the  Museum  of  Naples,  if  freed 
from  incorrect  restorations  and  rightly  set  together, 
veritable  descendant  from  the  original  work  of  An- 
tenor.  With  all  their  truth  to  physical  form  and 
movement,  with  a  conscious  mastery  of  delineation,  10 
they  were,  nevertheless,  in  certain  details,  in  the 
hair,  for  instance,  archaic,  or  rather  archaistic  — 
designedly  archaic,  as  from  the  hand  of  a  workman, 
for  whom,  in  this  subject,  archaism,  the  very  touch 
of  the  ancient  master,  had  a  sentimental  or  even  a  15 
religious  value.  And  unmistakeably  they  were 
young  assassins,  moving,  with  more  than  fraternal 
unity,  the  younger  in  advance  of  and  covering  the 
elder,  according  to  the  account  given  by  Herodotus, 
straight  to  their  purpose;  —  against  two  wicked 20 
brothers,  as  you  remember,  two  good  friends,  on 
behalf  of  the  dishonoured  sister  of  one  of  them. 

Archaeologists  have  loved  to  adjust  them  tenta- 
tively, with  various  hypotheses  as  to  the  precise 
manner  in  which  they  thus  went  together.  ]\Iean-25 
time  they  have  figured  plausibly  as  representative 
of  Attic  sculpture  at  the  end  of  its  first  period,  still 
immature  indeed,  but  with  a  just  claim  to  take 
breath,  so  to  speak,  having  now  accomplished  some 
stades  of  the  journey.  Those  young  heroes  of  Athe-  30 
nian  democracy,  then,  indicate  already  what  place 
Athens  and  Attica  will  occupy  in  the  supreme  age 
of  art  soon  to  come;  indicate  also  the  subject  from 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         185 

which  that  age  will  draw  the  main  stream  of  its  in- 
spiration—  living  youth,  "  iconic  "  in  its  exact  por- 
traiture, or  "  heroic  "  as  idealised  in  various  de- 
grees under  the  influence  of  great  thoughts  about 
5  it  —  youth  in  its  self-denying  contention  towards 
great  effects ;  great  intrinsically,  as  at  Marathon  or 
when  Hermodius  and  Aristogeiton  fell,  or  magni- 
fied by  the  force  and  splendour  of  Greek  imagina- 
tion with  the  stimulus  of  the  national  games.     For 

10  the  most  part,  indeed,  it  is  not  with  youth  taxed 
spasmodically,  like  that  of  Harmodius  and  Aristo- 
geiton, and  the  *'  necessity  "  that  was  upon  it,  that 
the  Athenian  mind  and  heart  are  now  busied;  but 
with  youth  in  its  voluntary  labours,  its  habitual  and 

15  measured  discipline,  labour  for  its  own  sake,  or  in 
wholly  friendly  contest  for  prizes  which  in  reality 
borrow  all  their  value  from  the  quality  of  the  re- 
ceiver. 

We  are  with  Pindar,  you  see,  in  this  athletic  age 

20  of  Greek  sculpture.  It  is  the  period  no  longer  of 
battle  against  a  foreign  foe,  recalling  the  Homeric 
ideal,  nor  against  the  tyrant  at  home,  fixing  a  du- 
bious ideal  for  the  future,  but  of  peaceful  combat 
as  a  fine  art  —  piilvis  Olympicus.     Anticipating  the 

25  arts,  poetry,  a  generation  before  Myron  and  Poly- 
cleitus,  had  drawn  already  from  the  youthful  com- 
batants in  the  great  national  games  the  motives  of 
those  Odes,  the  bracing  words  of  which,  as  I  said, 
are  like  work  in  fine  bronze,  or,  as  Pindar  himself 

30  suggests,  in  ivory  and  gold.  Sung  in  the  victor's 
supper-room,  or  at  the  door  of  his  abode,  or  with 
the  lyre  and  the  pipe  as  they  took  him  home  in 
procession  through  the  streets,  or  commemorated 


i86  SELECTIONS  EROM  PATER 

the  happy  day,  or  in  a  temple  where  he  laid  up  his 
crown,  Pindar's  songs  bear  witness  to  the  pride 
of  family  or  township  in  the  physical  perfection  of 
son  or  citizen,  and  his  consequent  success  in  the 
long  or  the  short  foot-race,  or  the  foot-race  ins 
armour,  or  the  pentathlon,  or  any  part  of  it.  "  Now 
on  one,  now  on  another,''  as  the  poet  tells,  "  doth 
the  grace  that  quickeneth  (quickeneth,  literally,  on 
the  race-course)  look  favourably."  ""ApinTw^  odwp 
he  declares  indeed,  and  the  actual  prize,  as  we  know,io 
was  in  itself  of  little  or  no  worth  —  a  cloak,  in  the 
Athenian  games,  but  at  the  greater  gam.es  a  mere 
handful  of  parsley,  a  few  sprigs  of  pine  or  wild 
olive.  The  prize  has,  so  to  say,  only  an  intellectual 
or  moral  value.  Yet  actually  Pindar's  own  verse  r  5 
is  all  of  gold  and  wine  and  flowers,  is  itself  avow- 
edly a  flower,  or  **  liquid  nectar,"  or  "  the  sweet 
fruit  of  his  soul  to  men  that  are  winners  in  the 
games."  "  As  when  from  a  wealthy  hand  one  lift- 
ing a  cup,  m.ade  glad  within  with  the  dew  of  the  20 
vine,  maketh  gift  thereof  to  a  youth :  "  —  the  key- 
note of  Pindar's  verse  is  there !  This  brilliant  liv- 
ing youth  of  his  day,  of  the  actual  time,  for  whom, 
as  he  says,  he  "  awakes  the  clear-toned  gale  of 
song  "  —  iTziiov  0I/J.0V  hyw  —  that  song  mingles  25 
sometimes  with  the  splendours  of  a  recorded  an- 
cient lineage,  or  with  the  legendary  greatness  of  a 
remoter  past,  its  gods  and  heroes,  patrons  or  an- 
cestors, it  might  be,  of  the  famous  young  man  of 
the  hour,  or  with  the  glory  and  solemnity  of  these 
immortals  themselves  taking  a  share  in  mortal  con- 
tests. On  such  pretext  he  will  tell  a  new  story,  or 
bring  to  its  last  perfection  by  his  manner  of  telling 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         187 

it,  his  pregnancy  and  studied  beauty  of  expression, 
an  old  one.  The  tale  of  Castor  and  Polydeukes,  the 
appropriate  patrons  of  virginal  yet  virile  youth, 
starred -and  mounted,  he  tells  in  all  its  human 
5  interest. 

"  Ample  is  the  glory  stored  up  for  Olympian 
winners."  And  what  Pindar's  contemporaries 
asked  of  him  for  the  due  appreciation,  the  conscious- 
ness, of  it,  by  way  of  song,  that  the  next  generation 

10  sought,  by  way  of  sculptural  memorial  in  marble, 
and  above  all,  as  it  seems,  in  bronze.  The  keen 
demand  for  athletic  statuary,  the  honour  attached 
to  the  artist  employed  to  make  his  statue  at  Olym- 
pia,  or  at  home,  bear  witness  again  to  the  pride 

15  with  which  a  Greek  town,  the  pathos,  it  might  be, 
with  which  a  family,  looked  back  to  the  victory  of 
one  of  its  members.  In  the  courts  of  Olympia  a 
whole  population  in  marble  and  bronze  gathered 
quickly, —  a  world   of   portraits,   out   of  which,   as 

20  the  purged  and  perfected  essence,  the  ideal  soul, 
of  them,  emerged  the  Diaditmemis,  for  instance, 
the  Discobolus,  the  so-called  Jason  of  the  Louvre. 
Olympia  was  in  truth,  as  Pindar  says  again,  a 
mother  of  gold-crowned  contests,  the  mother  of  a 

25  large  offspring.  All  over  Greece  the  enthusiasm 
for  gymnastic,  for  the  life  of  the  gymnasia,  pre- 
vailed. It  was  a  gymnastic  which,  under  the  happy 
conditions  of  that  time,  was  already  surely  what 
Plato  pleads  for,  already  one  half  music,  /JLoufrr/.rj, 

30  a  matter,  partly,  of  character  and  of  the  soul,  of  the 
fair  proportion  between  soul  and  body,  of  the  soul 
with  itself.  Who  can  doubt  it  who  sees  and  con- 
siders  the   still   irresistible   grace,   the   contagious 


i88  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

pleasantness,  of  tbe  Discobolus,  the  Diadumcmis,  and 
a  few  other  precious  survivals  from  the  athletic  age 
which  immediately  preceded  the  manhood  of  Phei- 
dias,  between  the  Persian  and  the  Peloponnesian 
wars  ?  5 

Now,  this  predominance  of  youth,  of  the  youth- 
ful form,  in  art,  of  bodily  gymnastic  promoting 
natural  advantages  to  the  utmost,  of  the  physical 
perfection  developed  thereby,  is  a  sign  that  essen- 
tial mastery  has  been  achieved  by  the  artist  —  the  to 
power,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  full  and  free  realisation. 
For  such  youth,  in  its  very  essence,  is  a  matter  prop- 
erly within  the  limits  of  the  visible,  the  empirical, 
world ;  and  in  the  presentment  of  it  there  will  be 
no  place  for  symbolic  hint,  none  of  that  reliance  on  15 
the  helpful  imagination  of  the  spectator,  the  legiti- 
mate scope  of  which  is  a  large  one,  when  art  is 
dealing  with  religious  objects,  with  what  in  the  ful- 
ness of  its  own  nature  is  not  really  expressible  at 
all.  In  any  passable  representation  of  the  Greek  20 
discobolus,  as  in  any  passable  representation  of  an 
English  cricketer,  there  can  be  no  successful  eva- 
sion of  the  natural  difficulties  of  the  thing  to  be 
done  —  the  difficulties  of  competing  with  nature 
itself,  or  its  maker,  in  that  marvellous  combination 25 
of  motion  and  rest,  of  inward  mechanism  with  the 
so  smoothly  finished  surface  and  outline  —  finished 
ad  iingucm  —  which  enfold  it. 

Of  the  gradual  development  of  such  mastery  of 
natural  detail,  a  veritable  counterfeit  of  nature,  the  30 
veritable  rkytJimns   of   the  runner,   for   example  — 
twinkling  heel  and  ivory  shoulder  —  we  have  hints 
and  traces  in  the  historians  of  art.     One  had  at- 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN  189 

tained  the  very  turn  and  texture  of  the  crisp  locks, 
another  the  very  feel  of  the  tense  nerve  and  fuU- 
fiushed  vein,  while  with  another  you  saw  the  bosom 
of  Ladas  expand,  the  lips  part,  as  if  for  a  last  breath 
5  ere  he  reached  the  goal.  It  was  like  a  child  find- 
ing little  by  little  the  use  of  its  limbs,  the  testimony 
of  its  senses,  at  a  definite  moment.  With  all  its 
poetic  impulse,  it  is  an  age  clearly  of  faithful  ob- 
servation, of  what  we  call  realism,  alike  m  its  iconic 

CO  and  heroic  work ;  alike  in  portraiture,  that  is  to 
say,  and  in  the  presentment  of  divine  or  abstract 
types.  Its  workmen  are  close  students  now  of  the 
living  form  as  such ;  aim  with  success  at  an  ever 
larger  and  more  various  expression  of  its  details ; 

15  or  replace  a  conventional  statement  of  them  by  a 
real  and  lively  one.  That  it  »was  thus  is  attested 
indirectly  by  the  fact  that  they  busied  themselves, 
seemingly  by  way  of  a  tour  de  force,  and  with  no 
essential  interest  in  such  subject,  alien  as  it  was  from 

20  the  pride  of  health  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
gymnastic  life,  with  the  expression  of  physical  pain, 
in  Philoctetes,  for  instance.  The  adroit,  the  swift, 
the  strong,  in  full  and  free  exercise  of  their  gifts, 
to  the  delight  of  others  and  of  themselves,  though 

25  their  sculptural  record  has  for  the  most  part  per- 
ished, are  specified  in  ancient  literary  notices  as 
the  sculptor's  favourite  subjects,  repeated,  remod- 
elled, over  and  over  again,  for  the  adornment  of 
the  actual  scene  of  athletic  success,  or  the  market- 

30  place  at  home  of  the  distant  Northern  or  Sicilian 
town  whence  the  prizeman  had  come. —  A  count- 
less series  of  popular  illustrations  to  Pindar's  Odes ! 
And  if  art  was  still  to  minister  to  the  religious 


190  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

sense,  it  could  only  be  by  clothing  celestial  spirits 
also  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  bodily  semblance 
of  the  various  athletic  combatants,  whose  patrons 
respectively  they  were  supposed  to  be. 

The  age  to  which  we  are  come  in  the  story  of  5 
Greek  art  presents  to  us  indeed  only  a  chapter  of 
scattered  fragments,  of  names  that  are  little  more, 
with  but  surmise  of  their  original  significance,  and 
mere  reasonings  as  to  the  sort  of  art  that  may  have 
occupied  what  are  really  empty  spaces.   Two  names,  10 
however,  connect  themselves   gloriously  with  cer- 
tain   extant   works    of   art ;   copies,    it    is    true,    at 
various  removes,  yet  copies  of  what  is  still  found 
delightful  through  them,  and  by  copyists  who  for 
the  most  part  .were  themselves  masters.     Through  15 
the  variations  of  the  copyist,  the  restorer,  the  mere 
imitator,  these  works  are  reducible  to  two  famous 
original  types  —  the  Discobolus  or  quoit-player,  of 
Myron,  the  beau  ideal  (we  may  use  that  term  for 
once  justly)  of  athletic  motion;  and  the  DiadumeniiS2Q 
o^    Polycleitus.      Binding    the    fillet   or    crown    of 
victory  upon  his  head,  he  presents  the  beau  ideal 
of  athletic  repose.     He  almost  begins  to  think. 

Myron  was  a  native  of  Eleutherae,  and  a  pupil  of 
Ageladas  of  Argos.  There  is  nothing  more  to  tell  25 
by  way  of  positive  detail  of  this  so  famous  artist, 
save  that  the  main  scene  of  his  activity  was  Athens, 
now  become  the  centre  of  the  artistic  as  of  all  other 
modes  of  life  in  Greece.  Multiplicasse  veritatem 
videtur,  says  Pliny.  He  was  in  fact  an  earnest  real-  30 
1st  or  naturalist,  and  rose  to  central  perfection  in 
the  portraiture,  the  idealised  portraiture,  of  athletic 
youth,  from  a  mastery  first  of  all  in  the  delineation 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         191 

of  inferior  objects,  of  little  lifeless  or  living  things. 
Think,  however,  for  a  moment,  how  winning  such 
objects  are  still,  as  presented  on  Greek  coins ;  — 
the  ear  of  corn,  for  instance,  on  those  of  Metapon- 
5  tum ;  the  microscopic  cockle-shell,  the  dolphins,  on 
the  coins  of  Syracuse.  Myron,  then,  passes  from 
pleasant  truth  of  that  kind  to  the  delineation  of  the 
worthier  sorts  of  animal  life, —  the  ox,  the  dog  — 
to  nothing  short  of  illusion   in   the  treatment   of 

10  them,  as  ancient  connoisseurs  would  have  you  un- 
derstand. It  is  said  that  there  are  thirty-six  extant 
epigrams  on  his  brazen  cow.  That  animal  has  her 
gentle  place  in  Greek  art,  from  the  Siren  tomb, 
suckling  her  young  there,  as  the  type  of  eternal 

15  rejuvenescence,  onwards  to  the  procession  of  the 
Elgin  frieze,  where,  still  breathing  deliciously  of  the 
distant  pastures,  she  is  led  to  the  altar.  We  feel 
sorry  for  her,  as  we  look,  so  lifelike  is  the  carved 
marble.     The  sculptor  who  worked  there,  whoever 

20  he  may  have  been,  had  profited  doubtless  by  the 
study  of  Myron's  famous  work.  For  what  purpose 
he  made  it,  does  not  appear ;  —  as  an  architectural 
ornament;  or  a  votive  offering;  perhaps  only  be- 
cause he  liked  making  it.     In  hyperbolic  epigram, 

25  at  any  rate,  the  animal  breathes,  explaining  suffi- 
ciently the  point  of  Pliny's  phrase  regarding  Myron  : 
—  Corporuni  citriosus.  And  when  he  came  to  his 
main  business  with  the  quoit-player,  the  wrestler, 
the  runner,  he  did  not  for  a  moment  forget  that 

30  they  too  were  animals,  young  animals,  delighting  in 
natural  motion,  in  free  course  through  the  yielding 
air,  over  uninterrupted  space,  according  to  Aris- 
totle's definition  of  pleasure :  —  "  the  unhindered 


192  SELECTIONS  EKOM  PATER 

exercise  of  one's  natural  force."  Corpormn  teniis 
curiosus:  —  he  was  a  "curious  workman"  as  far 
as  the  Hving  body  is  concerned.  Pliny  goes  on 
to  qualify  that  phrase  by  saying  that  he  did  not 
express  the  sensations  of  the  mind  —  animi  sensus.  5 
But  just  there,  in  fact,  precisely  in  such  limitation, 
we  find  what  authenticates  Myron's  peculiar  value 
in  the  evolution  of  Greek  art.  It  is  of  the  essence 
of  the  athletic  prizeman,  involved  in  the  very  ideal 
of  the  quoit-player,  the  cricketer,  not  to  give  ex-  10 
pression  to  mind,  in  any  antagonism  to,  or  invasion 
of,  the  body;  to  mind  as  anything  more  than  a 
function  of  the  body,  whose  healthful  balance  of 
functions  it  may  so  easily  perturb ;  —  to  disavow 
that  insidious  enemy  of  the  fairness  of  the  bodily  15 
soul  as  such. 

Yet  if  the  art  of  Myron  was  but  little  occupied  with 
the  reasonable  soul  {animus),  with  those  mental  situ- 
ations the  expression  of  which,  though  it  may  have 
pathos  and  a  beauty  of  its  own,  is  for  the  most  part  20 
adverse  to  the  proper  expression  of  youth,  to  the 
beauty  of  youth,  by  causing  it  to  be  no  longer 
youthful,  he  was  certainly  a  master  of  the  animal 
or  physical  soul  there  {aniind)  ;  how  it  is,  how  it 
displays  itself,  as  illustrated,  for  instance,  in  the  25 
Discobolus.  Of  voluntary  animal  motion  the  very 
soul  is  undoubtedly  there.  We  have  but  transla- 
tions into  marble  of  the  original  bronze.  In  that, 
it  was  as  if  a  blast  of  cool  wind  had  congealed  the 
metal,  or  the  living  youth,  fixed  him  imperishably  30 
in  that  moment  of  rest  which  lies  between  two  op- 
posed motions,  the  backzvard  swing  of  the  right 
arm,  the  movement  forwards  on  which  the  left  foot 


THE  AGE  OE  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         193 

is  in  the  very  act  of  starting.  The  matter  of  the 
thing,  the  stately  bronze  or  marble,  thus  rests  in- 
deed ;  but  the  artistic  form  of  it,  in  truth,  scarcely 
more,  even  to  the  eye,  than  the  rolling  ball  or  disk, 
5  may  be  said  to  rest,  at  every  moment  of  its  course, 
—  just  metaphysically,  you  know. 

This  mystery  of  combined  motion  and  rest,  of  rest 
in  motion,  had  involved,  of  course,  on  the  part  of 
the  sculptor  who  had  mastered  its  secret,  long  and 

10  intricate  consideration.  Archaic  as  it  is,  primitive 
still  in  some  respects,  full  of  the  primitive  youth  it 
celebrates,  it  is,  in  fact,  a  learned  work,  and  sug- 
gested to  a  great  analyst  of  literary  style,  singular 
as  it   may  seem,  the  "elaborate  "  or  "  contorted  " 

15  manner  in  literature  of  the  later  Latin  writers, 
which,  however,  he  finds  "  laudable  "  for  its  pur- 
pose. Yet  with  all  its  learned  involution,  thus  so 
oddly  characterised  by  Quintilian,  so  entirely  is  this 
quality  subordinated  to  the  proper  purpose  of  the 

20  Discobolus  as  a  work  of  art,  a  thing  to  be  looked 
at  rather  than  to  think  about,  that  it  makes  one  ex- 
claim still,  with  the  poet  of  athletes,  "  The  natural 
is  ever  best!  " — "O  (^k  (poa  a-a^j  y.pd-c,ffrov.  Perhaps 
that  triumphant,  unimpeachable  naturalness  is  after 

25  all  the  reason  why,  on  seeing  it  for  the  first  time, 
it  suggests  no  new  view  of  the  beauty  of  human 
form,  or  point  of  view  for  the  regarding  of  it ;  is 
acceptable  rather  as  embodying  (say,  in  one  per- 
fect flower)  all  one  has  ever  fancied  or  seen,  in  old 

30  Greece  or  on  Thames'  side,  of  the  unspoiled  body 
of  youth,  thus  delighting  itself  and  others,  at  that 
perfect,   because    unconscious,    point   of    good-for- 
tune, as  it  moves  or  rests  just  there  for  a  moment. 
13 


194  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

between  the  animal  and  spiritual  worlds.  "  Grant 
them,"  you  pray  in  Pindar's  own  words,  "  grant 
them  with  feet  so  light  to  pass  through  life !  " 

The  face  of  the  young  man,  as  you  see  him  in  the 
British  Museum  for  instance,  with  fittingly  inex-5 
pressive  expression,  (look  into,  look  at  the  curves 
of,  the  blossomlike  cavity  of  the  opened   mouth) 
is  beautiful,  but  not  altogether  virile.       The  eyes, 
the  facial  lines  which  they  gather  into  one,  seem 
ready  to  follow  the  coming  motion  of  the  discus  asio 
those  of  an  onlooker  might  be ;  but  that  head  does 
not  really  belong  to  the  discobolus.     To  be  assured 
of  this  you  have  but  to  compare  with  that  version 
in  the  British  Museum  the  most  authentic  of  all 
derivations  from  the  original,  preserved  till  lately  15 
at  the  Palazzo  Massimi  in  Rome.     Here,  the  vig- 
orous head  also,  with  the  face,  smooth  enough,  but 
spare,  and  tightly  drawn  over  muscle  and  bone,  is 
sympathetic  with,  yields  itself  to,  the  concentration, 
in  the  most  literal  sense,  of  all  beside ;  —  is  itself,  20 
in  very  truth,  the  steady  centre  of  the  discus,  which 
begins  to  spin ;  as  the  source  of  will,  the  source  of 
the  motion  with  which  the  discus  is  already  on  the 
wing, —  that,  and  the  entire  form.     The  Discobolus 
of  the  Massimi  Palace  presents,  moreover,  in  the  25 
hair,  for  instance,  those  survivals  of  primitive  man- 
ner which  would  mark  legitimately  Myron's  actual 
Pre-Pheidiac  stand-point;    as  they  are  congruous 
also  with  a  certain  archaic,   a  more  than  merely 
athletic,   spareness   of   form   generally  —  delightful  30 
touches  of  unreality  in  this  realist  of  a  great  time, 
and  of  a  sort  of  conventionalism  that  has  an  attrac- 
tion in  itself. 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         195 

Was  it  a  portrait  ?  That  one  can  so  much  as  ask 
the  question  is  a  proof  how  far  the  master,  in  spite 
of  his  lingering  archaism,  is  come  already  from  the 
antique  marbles  of  ^gina.  Was  it  the  portrait  of 
5  one  much-admired  youth,  or  rather  the  type,  the 
rectified  essence,  of  many  such,  at  the  most  preg- 
nant, the  essential,  moment,  of  the  exercise  of  their 
natural  powers,  of  what  they  really  were?  Have 
we  here,  in  short,  the  sculptor  Myron's  reasoned 

10  memory  of  many  a  quoit-player,  of  a  long  flight  of 
quoit-players ;  as,  were  he  here,  he  might  have  given 
us  the  cricketer,  the  passing  generation  of  cricket- 
ers, sub  specie  eteniitatis,  under  the  eternal  form- 
of  art? 

15  Was  it  in  that  case  a  commemorative  or  votive 
statue,  such  as  Pausanias  found  scattered  through- 
out Greece?  Was  it,  again,  designed  to  be  part 
only  of  some  larger  decorative  scheme,  as  some 
have  supposed  of  the  Venus  of  Melos,  or  a  work  of 

20  genre  as  we  say,  a  thing  intended  merely  to  interest, 
to  gratify  the  taste,  with  no  further  purpose?  In 
either  case  it  may  have  represented  some  legendary 
quoit-player — Perseus  at  play  with  Acrisius  fatally, 
as  one  has  suggested ;  or  Apollo  with  Hyacinthus, 

25  as  Ovid  describes  him  in  a  work  of  poetic  genre. 
And  if  the  Discobolus  is,  after  all,  a  work  of  genre 

—  a  work  merely  imitative  of  the  detail  of  actual  life 

—  for  the  adornment  of  a  room  in  a  private  house, 
it  would  be  only  one  of  many  such  produced  in 

30  Myron's  day.  It  would  be,  in  fact,  one  of  the  pristce 
directly  attributed  to  him  by  Pliny,  little  congruous 
as  they  may  seem  with  the  grandiose  motions  of 
his  more  characteristic  work.    The  firistce,  the  saw- 


196  SELECT  10 iXS  PROM  PATER 

vers, —  a  celebrated  creation  of  the  kind, —  is  sup- 
posed to  have  given  its  name  to  the  whole  class  of 
like  things.  No  age,  indeed,  since  the  rudiments 
of  art  were  mastered,  can  have  been  without  such 
reproductions  of  the  pedestrian  incidents  of  every  5 
day,  for  the  mere  pleasant  exercise  at  once  of  the 
curiosity  of  the  spectator  and  the  imitative  instinct 
of  the  producer.  The  Tcrra-Cofta  Rooms  or  the 
Louvre  and  the  British  Museum  are  a  proof  of  it. 
One  such  work  indeed  there  is,  delightful  in  itself,  lo 
technically  exquisite,  most  interesting  by  its  history, 
which  properly  finds  its  place  beside  the  larger, 
•the  full-grown,  physical  perfection  of  the  Discobolus, 
one  of  wdiose  alert  younger  brethren  he  may  be, 
—  the  Spinario  namely,  the  boy  drawing  a  thorn  15 
from  his  foot,  preserved  in  the  so  rare,  veritable 
antique  bronze  at  Rome,  in  the  Museum  of  the 
Capitol,  and  well  known  in  a  host  of  ancient  and 
modern  reproductions. 

There,   or  elsewhere  in   Rome,  tolerated   in  the  20 
general  destruction  of  ancient  sculpture  —  like  the 
'*'  Wolf  of  the  Capitol,"  allowed  by  way  of  heraldic 
sign,   as  in   modern  Siena,  or  like  the  equestrian 
figure  of  Marcus  Aurelius  doing  duty  as  Charle- 
magne,—  like  those,  but  like  very  few  other  works  25 
of  the  kind,  the  Spinario  remained,  well-known  and 
in  honour,  throughout  the  Middle  Age.       Stories 
like  that  of  Ladas  the  famous  runner,  who  died  as 
he  reached  the  goal  in  a  glorious  foot-race  of  boys, 
the  subject  of  a  famous  work  by  Myron  himself,  30 
(the  "  last  breath,"  as  you  saw,  was  on  the  boy's 
lips)  were  told  of  the  half-grown  bronze  lad  at  the 
Capitol.     Of  necessity,  but  fatally,  he  must  pause 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         197 

for  a  few  moments  in  his  course ;  or  the  course  is 
at  length  over,  or  the  breathless  journey  with  some 
all-important  tidings ;  and  now,  not  till  now,  he 
thinks  of  resting  to  draw  from  the  sole  of  his  foot 
5  the  cruel  thorn,  driven  into  it  as  he  ran.  In  any 
case,  there  he  still  sits  for  a  moment,  for  ever, 
amid  the  smiling  admiration  of  centuries,  in  the 
agility,  in  the  perfect  naivete  also  as  thus  occupied, 
of    his    sixteenth    year,    to    which    the    somewhat 

10  lengthy  or  attenuated  structure  of  the  limbs  is  con- 
formable. And  then,  in  this  attenuation,  in  the 
almost  Egyptian  proportions,  in  the  shallowness  of 
the  chest  and  shoulders  especially,  in  the  Phoe- 
nician or  old  Greek  sharpness  and  length  of  profile, 

15  and  the  long,  conventional,  wire-drawn  hair  of  the 
boy,  arching  formally  over  the  forehead  and  round 
the  neck,  there  is  something  of  archaism,  of  that 
archaism  which  survives,  truly,  in  Myron's  own 
work,  blending  with  the  grace  and  power  of  well- 

20  nigh  the  maturity  of  Greek  art.     The  blending  of 

interests,  of  artistic  alliances,  is  certainly  delightful. 

Polycleitus,  the  other  famous  name  of  this  period, 

and  with   a  fame  justified  by  work  we   may   still 

study,  at  least  in  its  immediate  derivatives,  had  also 

25  tried  his  hand  with  success  in  such  subjects.  In  the 
Astra galizontes,  for  instance,  well-known  to  an- 
tiquity in  countless  reproductions,  he  had  treated 
an  incident  of  the  every-day  life  of  every  age,  which 
Plato  sketches  by  the  way. 

30  Myron,  by  patience  of  genius,  had  mastered  the 
secret  of  the  expression  of  movement,  had  plucked 
out  the  very  heart  of  its  mystery.  Polycleitus,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  above  all  the  master  of  rest,  of  the 


198  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

expression  of  rest  after  toil,  in  the  victorious  and 
crowned  athlete,  Diadiimemis.  In  many  slightly 
varying  forms,  marble  versions  of  the  original  in 
bronze  of  Delos,  the  Diadiwiemts,  indifferently, 
mechanically,  is  binding  round  his  head  a  ribbons 
or  fillet.  In  the  Vaison  copy  at  the  British  Museum 
it  was  of  silver.  That  simple  fillet  is,  in  fact,  a 
diadem,  a  crown,  and  he  assumes  it  as  a  victor ;  but, 
as  I  said,  mechanically,  and,  prize  in  hand,  might 
be  asking  himself  whether  after  all  it  had  been  worth  lo 
while.  For  the  active  beauty  of  the  Agonistes  of 
which  Myron's  art  is  full,  we  have  here,  then,  the 
passive  beauty  of  the  victor.  But  the  later  incident, 
the  realisation  of  rest,  is  actually  in  affinity  with  a 
certain  earliness,  so  to  call  it,  in  the  temper  and  15 
work  of  Polycleitus.  He  is  already  something  of  a 
reactionary;  or  pauses,  rather,  to  enjoy,  to  convey 
enjoyably  to  others,  the  full  savour  of  a  particular 
moment  in  the  development  of  his  craft,  the  moment 
of  the  perfecting  of  restful  form,  before  the  mere  20 
consciousness  of  technical  mastery  in  delineation 
urges  forward  the  art  of  sculpture  to  a  bewildering 
infinitude  of  motion.  In  opposition  to  the  ease,  the 
freedom,  of  others,  his  aim  is,  by  a  voluntary  re- 
straint in  the  exercise  of  such  technical  mastery,  to  25 
achieve  nothing  less  than  the  impeccable,  within 
certain  narrow  limits.  He  still  hesitates,  is  self- 
exacting,  seems  even  to  have  checked  a  growing 
readiness  of  hand  in  the  artists  about  him.  He  was 
renowned  as  a  graver,  found  much  to  do  with  the  30 
chisel,  introducing  many  a  fine  after-thought,  when 
the  rough-casting  of  his  work  was  over.  He  studied 
human  form  under  such  conditions  as  would  bring 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         199 

out  its  natural  features,  its  static  laws,  in  their  en- 
tirety, their  harmony ;  and  in  an  academic  work,  so 
to  speak,  no  longer  to  be  clearly  identified  in  what 
may  be  derivations  from  it,  he  claimed  to  have  fixed 
5  the  canon,  the  common  measure,  of  perfect  man. 
Yet  with  Polycleitus  certainly  the  measure  of  man 
was  not  yet  "  the  measure  of  an  angel,"  but  still 
only  that  of  mortal  youth;  of  youth,  however,  in 
that  scrupulous  and  uncontaminate  purity  of  form 

10  which  recommended  itself  even  to  the  Greeks  as 
befitting  messengers  from  the  gods,  if  such  mes- 
sengers should  come. 

And  yet  a  large  part  of  Polycleitus'  contemporary 
fame    depended    on    his    religious   work  —  on    his 

15  statue  of  Here,  for  instance,  in  ivory  and  gold — • 
that  too,  doubtless,  expressive,  as  appropriately  to 
its  subject  as  to  himself,  of  a  passive  beauty.  We 
see  it  still,  perhaps,  in  the  coins  of  Argos.  And  has 
not  the  crowned  victor,  too,  in  that  mechanic  ac- 

2otion,  in  his  demure  attitude,  something  which  re- 
minds us  of  the  religious  significance  of  the  Greek 
athletic  service?  It  was  a  sort  of  worship,  you 
know  —  that  department  of  public  life;  such  wor- 
ship as  Greece,  still  in  its  superficial  youth,  found 

25  itself  best  capable  of.  At  least  those  solemn  con- 
tests began  and  ended  with  prayer  and  sacrifice. 
Their  most  honoured  prizes  were  a  kind  of  re- 
ligiously symbolical  objects.  The  athletic  life  cer- 
tainly breathes  of  abstinence,  of  rule,  and  the  keep- 

3oing  under  of  one's  self.  And  here  in  the  Diadu- 
menus  we  have  one  of  its  priests,  a  priest  of  the 
religion  whose  central  motive  was  what  has  been 
called  "  the  worship  of  the  body,"  —  its  modest 
priest. 


200  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

The  so-called  Jason  at  the  Louvre,  the  Apoxyo- 
menus,  and  a  certain  number  of  others  you  will  meet 
with  from  time  to  time  —  whatever  be  the  age  and 
derivation  of  the  actual  marble  which  reproduced 
for  Rome,  for  Africa,  or  Gaul,  types  that  can  haves 
had  their  first  origin  in  one  only  time  and  place  — • 
belong,  at  least  aesthetically,  to  this  group,  together 
with  the  Adorante  of  Berlin,  Winckelmann's  antique 
favourite,  who  with  uplifted  face  and  hands  seems 
to  be  indeed  in  prayer,  looks  immaculate  enough  to  lo 
be  interceding  for  others.  As  to  the  Jason  of  the 
Louvre,  one  asks  at  first  sight  of  him,  as  he  stoops 
to  make  fast  the  sandal  on  his  foot,  whether  the 
young  man  can  be  already  so  marked  a  personage. 
Is  he  already  the  approved  hero,  bent  on  some  great  15, 
act  of  his  famous  epopee;  or  mere  youth  only,  again, 
arraying  itself  mechanically,  but  alert  in  eye  and 
soul,  prompt  to  be  roused  to  any  great  action  what- 
ever? The  vaguely  opened  lips  certainly  suggest 
the  latter  view ;  if  indeed  the  body  and  the  head  (in  20 
a  different  sort  of  marble)  really  belong  to  one  an- 
other. Ah !  the  more  closely  you  consider  the  frag- 
ments of  antiquity,  those  stray  letters  of  the  old 
Greek  aesthetic  alphabet,  the  less  positive  will  your 
conclusions  become,  because  less  conclusive  the  25 
data  regarding  artistic  origin  and  purpose.  Set 
here  also,  however,  to  the  end  that  in  a  congruous 
atmosphere,  in  a  real  perspective,  they  may  assume 
their  full  moral  and  aesthetic  expression,  whatever 
of  like  spirit  you  may  come  upon  in  Greek  or  any  30 
other  work,  remembering  that  in  England  also,  in 
Oxford,  we  have  still,  for  any  master  of  such  art 
that  may  be  given  us,  subjects  truly  "  made  to  his 
hand."  ' 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         201 

As  with  these,  so  with  their  prototypes  at  Olym- 
pia,  or  at  the  Isthmus,  above  all  perhaps  in  the 
Diadumemis  of  Polycleitus,  a  certain  melancholy  (a 
pagan  melancholy,  it  may  be  rightly  called,  even 

5  when  we  detect  it  in  our  English  youth)  is  blent 
with  the  final  impression  we  retain  of  them.  They 
are  at  play  indeed,  in  the  sun;  but  a  little  cloud 
passes  over  it  now  and  then;  and  just  because  oi 
them,  because  they  are  there,  the  whole  aspect  of 

10  the  place  is  chilled  suddenly,  beyond  what  one  could 
have  thought  possible,  into  what  seems,  neverthe- 
less, to  be  the  proper  and  permanent  light  of  day. 
For  though  they  pass  on  from  age  to  age  the  type 
of  what  is  pleasantest  to  look  on,  which,  as  type,  is 

1,5  indeed  eternal,  it  is,  of  course,  but  for  an  hour  that 
it  rests  with  any  one  of  them  individually.  Assuredly 
they  have  no  maladies  of  soul  any  more  than  of 
the  body  —  Anirni  sensits  non  expressit.  But  if 
they  are  not  yet  thinking,  there  is  the  capacity  of 

I'.o  thought,  of  painful  thought,  in  them,  as  they  seem 
to  be  aware  wistfully.  In  the  Diadumemis  of  Poly- 
cleitus this  expression  allies  itself  to  the  long- 
drawn  facial  type  of  his  preference,  to  be  found  also 
in  another  very  different  subject,  the  ideal  of  which 

25  he  fixed  in  Greek  sculpture  —  the  would-be  virile 
Amazon,  in  exquisite  pain,  alike  of  body  and  soul 
—  the  "  Wounded  Amazon."  We  may  be  reminded 
that  in  the  first  mention  of  athletic  contests  in 
Greek  literature  —  in  the  twenty-third  book  of  the 

^o  Iliad  —  they  form  part  of  the  funeral  rites  of  the 
hero  Patroclus. 

It  is  thus,  though  but  in  the  faintest  degree,  even 
with  the  veritable  prince  of  that  world  of  antique 


202  SELECTIONS  EROM  PATER 

bronze  and  marble,  the  Discobolus  at  Rest  of  the 
Vatican,  which  might  well  be  set  where  Winckel- 
mann  set  the  Adcrante,  representing  as  it  probably 
does,  the  original  of  Alcamenes,  in  whom  a  genera- 
tion after  Pheidias,  an  earlier  and  more  earnests 
spirit  still  survived.  Although  the  crisply  trimmed 
head  may  seem  a  little  too  small  to  our,  perhaps 
not  quite  rightful,  eyes,  we  might  accept  him  for 
that  canon,  or  measure,  of  the  perfect  human  form, 
which  Polycleitus  had  proposed.  He  is  neither  lo 
the  victor  at  rest,  as  with  Polycleitus,  nor  the  com- 
batant already  in  motion,  as  with  Myron;  but,  as 
if  stepping  backward  from  Myron's  precise  point 
of  interest,  and  with  the  heavy  discus  still  in  the 
left  hand,  he  is  preparing  for  his  venture,  taking  15 
stand  carefully  on  the  right  foot.  Eye  and  mind 
concentre,  loyally,  entirely,  upon  the  business  in 
hand.  The  very  finger  is  reckoning  while  he 
watches,  intent  upon  the  cast  of  another,  as  the 
metal  glides  to  the  goal.  Take  him,  to  lead  you  20 
forth  quite  out  of  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Greek 
world.  You  have  pure  humanity  there,  with  a 
glowing,  yet  restrained  joy  and  delight  in  itself,  but 
without  vanity;  and  it  is  pure.  There  is  nothing 
certainly  supersensual  in  that  fair,  round  head,  any  25 
more  than  in  the  long,  agile  limbs ;  but  also  no  im- 
pediment, natural  or  acquired..  To  have  achieved 
just  that,  was  the  Greek's  truest  claim  for  further- 
ance in  the  main  line  of  human  development.  He 
had  been  faithful,  we  cannot  help  saying,  as  we  pass  30 
from  that  youthful  company,  in  what  comparatively 
is  perhaps  little  —  in  the  culture,  the  administration, 
of  the  visible  world ;  and  he  merited,  so  we  might 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN         203 

go  on  to  say  —  he  merited  Revelation,  something 
which  should  solace  his  heart  in  the  inevitable  fad- 
ing of  that.  We  are  reminded  of  those  strange  pro- 
phetic words  of  the  Wisdom,  the  Logos,  by  whom 
5  God  made  the  world,  in  one  of  the  sapiential,  half- 
Platonic  books  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  :  —  "I 
was  by  him,  as  one  brought  up  with  him ;  rejoicing 
in  the  habitable  parts  of  the  earth.  My  delights 
were  with  the  sons  of  men." 

'°     (From  the  Contemporary  Review,  February,  1894.     Greek 
Studies,  1895.) 


/ 


•Wotte^Damc  t)*Hmiens 


The  greatest  and  purest  of  Gothic  churches, 
Notre-Dame  d'Amiens,  illustrates,  by  its  fine  quali- 
ties, a  characteristic  secular  movement  of  the  be- 
ginning of  the  thirteenth  century.  Philosophic 
writers  of  French  history  have  explained  how,  ins 
that  and  in  the  two  preceding  centuries,  a  great 
number  of  the  more  important  towns  in  eastern 
and  northern  France  rose  against  the  feudal  estab- 
lishment, and  developed  severally  the  local  and 
municipal  life  of  the  commune.  To  guarantee  their  ic 
independence  therein  they  obtained  charters  from 
their  formal  superiors.  The  Charter  of  Amiens 
served  as  the  model  for  many  other  communes. 
Notre-Dame  d'Amiens  is  the  church  of  a  com- 
mune. In  that  century  of  Saint  Francis,  of  Saint  15 
Louis,  they  were  still  religious.  But  over  against 
monastic  interests,  as  identified  with  a  central  au- 
thority —  king,  emperor,  or  pope  —  they  pushed 
forward  the  local,  and,  so  to  call  it,  secular  author- 
ity of  their  bishops,  the  flower  of  the  "  secular  20 
clergy  "  in  all  its  mundane  astuteness,  ready  enough 
to  make  their  way  as  the  natural  protectors  of  such 
townships.  The  people  of  Amiens,  for  instance, 
under  a  powerful  episcopal  patron,  invested  their 
civic  pride  in  a  vast  cathedral,  outrivalling  neigh- 25 
bours,  as  being  in  effect  their  parochial  church, 
and  promoted  there  the  new,  revolutionary,  Gothic 
manner,  at  'the  expense  of  the  derivative  and  tra- 
204 


NOT  RE-DAME  D' AM  I  ENS  205 

ditional,  Roman  or  Romanesque,  style,  the  imperial 
style,  of  the  great  monastic  churches.  Nay,  those 
grand  and  beautiful  people's  churches  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  churches  pre-eminently  of  "  Our 
5  Lady,"  concurred  also  with  certain  novel  human- 
istic movements  of  religion  itself  at  that  period, 
above  all  with  the  expansion  of  what  is  reassuring 
and  popular  in  the  worship  of  ]\Iary,  as  a  tender 
and  accessible,  though  almost  irresistible,  interces- 

10  sor  with  her  severe  and  awful  Son. 

Hence  the  splendour,  the  space,  the  novelty,  of 
the  great  French  cathedrals  in  the  first  Pointed 
style,  monuments  for  the  most  part  of  the  artistic 
genius  of  laymen,  significant  pre-eminently  of  that 

15  Queen  of  Gothic  churches  at  Amiens.  In  most 
cases  those  early  Pointed  churches  are  entangled, 
here  or  there,  by  the  constructions  of  the  old  round- 
arched  style,  the  heavy,  Norman  or  other,  Roman- 
esque chapel  or  aisle,  side  by  side,  though  in  strong 

20  contrast  with,  the  soaring  new  Gothic  of  nave  or 
transept.  But  of  that  older  manner  of  the  round 
arch,  the  plein-cintre,  Amiens  has  nowhere,  or  al- 
most nowhere,  a  trace.  The  Pointed  style,  fully 
pronounced,  but  in  all  the  purity  of  its  first  period, 

25  found  here  its  completest  expression.  And  while 
those  venerable,  Romanesque,  profoundly  charac- 
teristic, monastic  churches,  the  gregarious  product 
of  long  centuries,  are  for  the  most  part  anonymous, 
as  if  to  illustrate  from  the  first  a  certain  personal 

30  tendency  which  came  in  with  the  Gothic  manner, 
we  know  the  name  of  the  architect  under  whom,  in 
the  year  a.  d.  1220,  the  building  of  the  church  of 
Amiens  began  —  a  layman,  Robert  de  Luzarches. 


2o6  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

Light  and  space  —  floods  of  light,  space  for  a 
vast  congregation,  for  all  the  people  of  Amiens,  for 
their  movements,  with  something  like  the  height 
and  width  of  heaven  itself  enclosed  above  them,  to 
breathe  in :  —  you  see  at  a  glance  that  this  is  what  5 
the  ingenuity  of  the  Pointed  method  of  building 
has  here  secured.  For  breadth,  for  the  easy  flow  of 
a  processional  torrent,  there  is  nothing  like  the 
"  ambulatory,"  the  aisle  of  the  choir  and  transepts. 
And  the  entire  area  is  on  one  level.  There  are  here  10 
no  flights  of  steps  upward,  as  at  Canterbury,  no  de- 
scending to  dark  crypts,  as  in  so  many  Italian 
churches  —  a  few  low,  broad  steps  to  gain  the  choir, 
two  or  three  to  the  high  altar.  To  a  large  extent 
the  old  pavement  remains,  though  almost  worn-out  15 
by  the  footsteps  of  centuries.  Priceless,  though 
not  composed  of  precious  material,  it  gains  its  effect 
by  ingenuity  and  variety  in  the  patterning,  zig- 
zag, chequers,  mazes,  prevailing,  respectively,  in 
white  and  gray,  in  great  square,  alternate  spaces  —  20 
the  original  floor  of  a  medieval  church  for  once  un- 
touched. The  massive  square  bases  of  the  pillars  of 
a  Romanesque  church,  harshly  angular,  obstruct, 
sometimes  cruelly,  the  standing,  the  movements, 
of  a  multitude  of  persons.  To  carry  such  a  multi-25 
tude  conveniently  round  them  is  the  matter-of-fact 
motive  of  the  gradual  chiselling  away,  the  soften- 
ing of  the  angles,  the  graceful  compassing,  of  the 
Gothic  base,  till  in  our  own  Perpendicular  period 
it  all  but  disappears.  You  may  study  that  tendency  30 
appropriately  in  the  one  church  of  Amiens ;  for  such 
in  effect  Notre-Dame  has  always  been.  That  cir- 
cumstance is  illustrated  by  the  great  font,  the  old- 


NOTRE-DAUE  D'AMIENS  207 

est  thing  here,  an  oblong  trough,  perhaps  an  an- 
cient saintly  coffin,  with  four  quaint  prophetic  fig- 
ures at  the  angles,  carved  from  a  single  block  of 
stone.    To  it,  as  to  the  baptistery  of  an  Italian  town, 

5  not  so  long  since  all  the  babes  of  Amiens  used  to 
come  for  christening. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  in  this  "  queen "  of 
Gothic  churches,  rSglise  ogivale  par  excellence,  there 
is  nothing  of  mystery  in  the  vision,  which  yet  sur- 

10  prises,  over  and  over  again,  the  eye  of  the  visitor 
who  enters  at  the  western  doorway.  From  the  flag- 
stone at  one's  foot  to  the  distant  keystone  of  the 
chevet,  noblest  of  its  species  —  reminding  you  of 
how  many  largely  graceful  things,  sails  of  a  ship 

15  in  the  wind,  and  the  like !  —  at  one  view  the  whole 
is  visible,  intelligible ;  —  the  integrity  of  the  first 
design;  how  later  additions  affixed  themselves 
thereto;  how  the  rich  ornament  gathered  upon  it; 
the  increasing  richness  of  the  choir;  its  glazed  tri- 

20  forium ;  the  realms  of  light  which  expand  in  the 
chapels  beyond ;  the  astonishing  boldness  of  the 
vault,  the  astonishing  lightness  of  what  keeps  it 
above  one ;  the  unity,  yet  the  variety  of  perspective. 
There  is  no  mystery  here,  and  indeed  no  repose. 

25  Like  the  age  which  projected  it,  like  the  impulsive 
communal  movement  which  was  here  its  motive, 
the  Pointed  style  in  Amiens  is  full  of  excitement. 
Go,  for  repose,  to  classic  work,  with  the  simple  ver- 
tical law  of  pressure  downwards,  or  to  its  Lombard, 

30  Rhenish,  or  Norman  derivatives.  Here,  rather,  you 
are  conscious  restlessly  of  that  sustained  equilib- 
rium of  oblique  pressure  on  all  sides,  which  is  the 
essence   of   the   hazardous    Gothic   construction,   a 


2oS  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

construction  of  which  the  "  flying  buttress  "  is  the 
most  significant  feature.  Across  the  clear  glass  of 
the  great  windows  of  the  triforium  you  see  it,  feel 
it,  at  its  Atlas-work  audaciously.  "  A  pleasant 
thing  it  is  to  behold  the  sun  "  those  first  Gothic  5 
builders  would  seem  to  have  said  to  themselves ; 
and  at  Amiens,  for  instance,  the  walls  have  disap- 
peared ;  the  entire  building  is  composed  of  its  win- 
dows. Those  who  built  it  might  have  had  for  their 
one  and  only  purpose  to  enclose  as  large  a  space  la 
as  possible  with  the  given  material. 

No ;  the  peculiar  Gothic  buttress,  with  its  double, 
triple,  fourfold  flights,  wdiile  it  makes  such  marvels 
possible,  securing  light  and  space  and  graceful  ef- 
fect, relieving  the  pillars  within  of  their  massive- 15 
ness,  is  not  a  restful  architectural  feature.  Con- 
solidation of  matter  naturally  on  the  move,  security 
for  settlement  in  a  very  complex  system  of  con- 
struction—  that  is  avowedly  a  part  of  the  Gothic 
situation,  the  Gothic  problem.  With. the  genius 20 
which  contended,  though  not  always  quite  success- 
fully, with  this  diflicult  problem,  came  also  novel 
aesthetic  effect,  a  whole  volume  of  delightful  aes- 
thetic efYects.  For  the  mere  melody  of  Greek  archi- 
tecture, for  the  sense  as  it  were  of  music  in  the  25 
opposition  of  successive  sounds,  you  got  harmony, 
the  richer  music  generated  by  opposition  of  sounds 
in  one  and  the  same  moment;  and  were  gainers. 
And  then,  in  contrast  with  the  classic  manner,  and 
the  Romanesque  survivals  from  it,  the  vast  com- 30 
plexity  of  the  Gothic  style  seemed,  as  if  consciously, 
to  correspond  to  the  richness,  the  expressiveness, 
the  thousand-fold  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion, 


NOTRE-DAME  D' AMIENS  '  209 

in  the  thirteenth  century  still  m  natural  movement 
in  every  direction.  The  later  Gothic  of  the  fifteenth- 
and  sixteenth  centuries  tended  to  conceal,  as  it  now 
took  for  granted,  the  structural  use  of  the  buttress, 
5  for  example ;  seemed  to  turn  it  into  a  mere  occa- 
sion for  ornament,  not  always  pleasantly :  —  while 
the  ornament  was  out  of  place,  the  structure  failed. 
Such  falsity  is  far  enough  away  from  what  at 
Amiens  is  really  of  the  thirteenth  century.     In  this 

10  pre-eminently  "  secular  "  church,  the  execution,  in 
all  the  defiance  of  its  method,  is  direct,  frank,  clearly 
apparent,  with  the  result  not  only  of  reassuring  the 
intelligence,  but  of  keeping  one's  curiosity  also  con- 
tinually on  the  alert,  as  we  linger  in  these  restless 

15  aisles. 

The  integrity  of  the  edifice,  together  with  its  vol- 
ume of  light,  has  indeed  been  diminished  by  the 
addition  of  a  range  of  chapels,  beyond  the  proper 
limits  of  the  aisles,  north  and  south.     Not  a  part 

20  of  the  original  design,  these  chapels  were  formed 
for  private  uses  in  the  fourteenth  century,  by  the 
device  of  walling  in  and  vaulting  the  open  spaces 
between  the  great  buttresses  of  the  nave„  Under 
the  broad  but  subdued  sunshine  which  falls  through 

25  range  upon  range  of  windows,  reflected  from  white 
wall  and  roof  and  gallery,  soothing  to  the  eye,  while 
it  allows  you  to  see  the  delicate  carved  work  in  all 
its  refinement  of  touch,  it  is  only  as  an  after- 
thought,  an   artificial   after-thought,   that   you   re- 

30  gret  the  lost  stained  glass,  or  the  vanished  mural 

colour,    if    such    to    any    large    extent    there    ever 

were.       The    best     stained     glass     is     often     that 

stained    by    weather,    by    centuries     of    weather, 

14 


210  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

and  we  may  well  be  grateful  for  the  amaz- 
ing cheerfulness  of  the  interior  of  Amiens,  as  we 
actually  find  it.  Windows  of  the  richest  remain, 
indeed,  in  the  apsidal  chapels;  and  the  rose-win- 
dows of  the  transepts  are  known,  from  the  prevail-  5 
ing  tones  of  their  stained  glass,  as  Fire  and  Water, 
the  western  rose  symbolising  in  like  manner  Earth 
and  Air,  as  respectively  green  and  blue.  But  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  interior  was  ever 
so  darkened  as  to  prevent  one's  seeing,  really  and  10 
clearly,  the  dainty  ornament,  which  from  the  first 
abounded  here ;  the  floriated  architectural  detail ; 
the  broad  band  of  flowers  and  foliage,  thick  and 
deep  and  purely  sculptured,  above  the  arches  of 
nave  and  choir  and  transepts,  and  wreathing  itself  15 
continuously  round  the  embedded  piers  which  sup- 
port the  roof;  with  the  woodwork,  the  illuminated 
metal,  the  magnificent  tombs,  the  jewellers'  work 
in  the  chapels.  One  precious,  early  thirteenth-cen- 
tury window  of  grisaille  remains,  exquisite  in  itself,  20 
Interesting  as  evidence  of  the  sort  of  decoration 
which  originally  filled  the  larger  number  of  the  win- 
dows. Grisaille,  with  Its  lace-work  of  transparent 
gray,  set  here  and  there  with  a  ruby,  a  sapphire, 
a  gemmed  medallion.  Interrupts  the  clear  light  on  25 
things  hardly  more  than  the  plain  glass,  of  which 
Indeed  such  windows  are  mainly  composed.  The 
finely  designed  frames  of  Iron  for  the  support  of  the 
glass,  In  the  windows  from  which  even  this  deco- 
ration is  gone,  still  remain,  to  the  delight  of  those  30 
who  are  knowing  in  the  matter. 

Very  ancient  light,  this  seems,  at  any  rate,  as  if 
it  had  been  lying  imprisoned  thus  for  long  centu- 


NOTRE-DAME  D' AMIENS  211 

ries ;  were  in  fact  the  light  over  which  the  great 
vault  originally  closed,  now  become  almost  sub- 
stance of  thought,  one  might  fancy, —  a  mental  ob- 
ject or  medium.  We  are  reminded  that  after  all 
5  we  must  of  necessity  look  on  the  great  churches 
of  the  Middle  Age  with  other  eyes  than  those  who 
built  or  first  worshipped  in  them;  that  there  is 
something  verily  worth  having,  and  a  just  equiva- 
lent for  something  else  lost,  in  the  mere  effect  of 

10  time,  and  that  the  salt  of  all  aesthetic  study  is  in 
the  question, —  What,  precisely  what,  is  this  to  nicf 
You  and  I,  perhaps,  should  not  care  much  for  the 
mural  colouring  of  a  medieval  church,  could  we 
see  it  as  it  was ;  might  think  it  crude,  and  in  the 

[5  way.  What  little  remains  of  it  at  Amiens  has 
parted,  indeed,  in  the  course  of  ages,  with  its  shrill- 
ness and  its  coarse  grain.  And  in  this  matter  cer- 
tainly in  view  of  Gothic  polychrome,  our  difference 
from  the  people  of  the  thirteenth  century  is  radi- 

20  cal.  We  have,  as  it  was  very  unlikely  they  should 
have,  a  curiosity,  a  very  pleasurable  curiosity,  in 
the  mere  working  of  the  stone  they  built  with,  and 
in  the  minute  facts  of  their  construction,  which  their 
colouring,  and  the  laj-er  of  plaster  it  involved,  dis- 

25  guised  or  hid.  We  may  think  that  in  architecture 
stone  is  the  most  beautiful  of  aP  things.  Modern 
hands  have  replaced  the  colour  on  some  of  the 
tombs  here  —  the  effigies,  the  tabernacles  above  — 
skilfully  as  may  be,  and  have  but  deprived  them  of 

30  their  dignity.  Medieval  colouring,  in  fact,  must 
have  improved  steadily,  as  it  decayed,  almost  till 
there  came  to  be  no  question  of  colour  at  all.  I?i 
architecture,  close  as  it  is  to  men's  lives  and  thei 


212  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

history,  the  visible  resuh  of  time  is  a  large  factor 
in  the  realised  aesthetic  value,  and  what  a  true  ar- 
chitect will  in  due  measure  always  trust  to.  A  false 
restoration  only  frustrates  the  proper  ripening  of 
his  work.  5 

If  we  may  credit  our  modern  eyes,  then,  those 
old,  very  secular  builders  aimed  at,  they  achieved, 
an  immense  cheerfulness  in  their  great  church,  with 
a  purpose  which  still  pursued  them  into  their  min- 
uter decoration.  The  conventional  vegetation  ofio 
the  Romanesque,  its  blendings  of  human  or  animal 
with  vegetable  form,  in  cornice  or  capital,  have 
given  way  here,  in  the  first  Pointed  style,  to  a 
pleasanter,  because  more  natural,  mode  of  fancy; 
to  veritable  forms  of  vegetable  life,  flower  or  leaf,  15 
from  meadow  and  woodside,  though  still  indeed 
with  a  certain  survival  of  the  grotesque  in  a  con- 
fusion of  the  leaf  with  the  flower,  which  the  sub- 
sequent Decorated  period  will  wholly  purge  away 
in  its  perfect  garden-borders.  It  was  not  with  mo- 20 
nastic  artists  and  artisans  that  the  sheds  and  work- 
shops around  Amiens  Cathedral  were  filled,  as  It 
rose  from  its  foundations  through  fifty  years ;  and 
those  lay  schools  of  art,  with  their  communistic 
sentiment,  to  which  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  25 
great  episcopal  builders  must  needs  resort,  would 
_in  the  natural  course  of  things  tend  toward  natural- 
ism. The  subordinate  arts  also  were  no  longer  at  the 
monastic  stage,  borrowing  inspiration  exclusively 
from  the  experiences  of  the  cloister,  but  belonged  to  30 
guilds  of  laymen  —  smiths,  painters,  sculptors.  The 
great  confederation  of  the  "city,"  the  commune, 
subdivided    itself    into   confederations    of    citizens. 


NOTRE-DAME  D'AMIENS  213 

In  the  natural  objects  of  the  first  Pointed  style 
there  is  the  freshness  as  of  nature  itself,  seen  and 
felt  for  the  first  time ;  as  if,  in  contrast,  those  older 
cloistral  workmen  had  but  fed  their  imagination 
5  in  an  embarrassed,  imprisoned,  and  really  decadent 
manner,  on  mere  reminiscence  of,  or  prescriptions 
about,  things  visible. 

Congruous  again  with  the  popularity  of  the  build- 
ers of  Amiens,  of  their  motives,  is  the  wealth,  the 

10  freedom  and  abundance,  of  popular,  almost  secular, 
teaching,  here  afforded,  in  the  carving  especially, 
within  and  without;  an  open  Bible,  in  place  of 
later  legend,  as  at  monastic  Vezelay, —  the  Bible 
treated  as  a  book  about  men  and  women,  and  other 

15  persons  equally  real,  but  blent  with  lessons,  with 
the  liveliest  observations,  on  the  lives  of  men  as 
they  were  then  and  now,  what  they  do,  and  how 
they  do  it,  or  did  it  then,  and  on  the  doings  of  na- 
ture which  so  greatly  influence  what  man  does ;  to- 

2ogether  with  certain  impressive  metaphysical  and 
moral  ideas,  a  sort  of  popular  scholastic  philosophy, 
or  as  if  it  were  the  virtues  and  vices  Aristotle  de- 
fines, or  the  characters  of  Theophrastus,  translated 
into  stone.     Above  all,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  as 

25  a  result  of  this  spirit,  this  ''  free  "  spirit,  in  it,  art  has 
at  last  become  personal.  The  artist,  as  such,  ap- 
pears at  Amiens,  as  elsewhere,  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury; and,  by  making  his  personal  way  of  concep- 
tion and  execution  prevail  there,  renders  his  own 

30  work  vivid  and  organic,  and  apt  to  catch  the  inter- 
est of  other  people.  He  is  no  longer  a  Byzantine, 
but  a  Greek  —  an  unconscious  Greek.  Proof  of 
this  is  in  the  famous  Beau-Dieu  of  Amiens,  as  they 


214  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

call  that  benign,  almost  classically  proportioned 
figure,  on  the  central  pillar  of  the  great  west  door- 
way ;  though  in  fact  neither  that,  nor  anything  else 
on  the  west  front  of  Amiens,  is  quite  the  best  work 
here.  For  that  we  must  look  rather  to  the  sculp- 5 
ture  of  the  portal  of  the  south  transept,  called,  from 
a  cerain  image  there,  Portail  de  la  Vierge  doree, 
gilded  at  the  expense  of  some  unknown  devout  per- 
son at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century.  A  presenta- 
tion of  the  mystic,  the  delicately  miraculous,  story  ic 
of  Saint  Honore,  eighth  Bishop  of  Amiens,  and 
his  companions,  with  its  voices,  its  intuitions,  and 
celestial  intimations,  it  has  evoked  a  correspondent 
method  of  work  at  once  naive  and  nicely  expres- 
sive. The  rose,  or  roue,  above  it,  carries  on  the  15 
outer  rim  seventeen  personages,  ascending  and  de- 
scending —  another  piece  of  popular  philosophy  — 
the  wheel  of  fortune,  or  of  human  life. 

And  they  were  great  brass-founders,  surely,  who 
at  that  early  day  modelled  and  cast  the  tombs  of  20 
the   Bishops   Evrard  and   Geofifrey,  vast  plates  of 
massive    black   bronze   in   half-relief,  like   abstract 
thoughts  of  those  grand  old  prelatic  persons.    The 
tomb  of  Evrard,  who  laid  the  foundations  {qui  fiin- 
damenta  hujiis  basilicce  locavit),  is  not  quite  as  it  was.  25 
Formerly  it  was  sunk  in  the  pavement,  while  the 
tomb  of  Bishop  Geof¥rey  opposite  (it  was  he  closed 
in  the  mighty   vault  of  the  nave :    hanc  basilicam 
cidmen  usque  perduxit),  itself  vaulted-over  the  space 
of  the  grave  beneath.     The  supreme  excellence  of  30 
those  original  workmen,  the  journeymen  of  Robert 
de  Luzarches  and  his  successor,  would  seem  indeed 
to  have  inspired  others,  who  have  been  at  their 


NOTRE-DAME  D'AMIENS  215 

best  here,  down  to  the  days  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth. It  prompted,  we  may  think,  a  high  level  of 
execution,  through  many  revolutions  of  taste  in 
such   matters;   in  the  marvellous  furniture  of  the 

5  choir,  for  instance,  like  a  whole  wood,  say  a  thicket 
of  old  hawthorn,  with  its  curved  topmost  branches 
spared,  slowly  transformed  by  the  labour  of  a  whole 
family  of  artists,  during  fourteen  years,  into  the 
stalls,  in  number  one  hundred  and  ten,  with  nearly 

10  four  thousand  figures.  Yet  they  are  but  on  a  level 
with  the  Flamboyant  carved  and  coloured  enclos- 
ures of  the  choir,  with  the  histories  of  John  the 
Baptist,  whose  face-bones  are  here  preserved,  and 
of  Saint  Firmin  —  popular  saint,  who  protects  the 

15  houses  of  Amiens  from  fire.  Even  the  screens  of 
forged  iron  around  the  sanctuary,  work  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  appear  actually  to  soar,  in  their 
way,  in  concert  with  the  airy  Gothic  structure;  to 
let  the  daylight  pass  as  it  will ;  to  have  come,  they 

20  too,  from  smiths,  odd  as  it  may  seem  at  just  that 
time,  with  some  touch  of  inspiration  in  them.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  they  had 
reared  against  a  certain  bald  space  of  wall,  between 
the  great  portal  and  the  western  "  rose,"  an  organ, 

25  a  lofty,  many-chambered,  veritable  house  of  church- 
music,  rich  in  azure  and  gold,  finished  above  at  a 
later  day,  not  incongruously,  in  the  quaint,  pretty 
manner  of  Henri-Deux.  And  those  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  curiosities  of  ritual,  of  the  old  provin- 

30  cial  Gallican  "  uses,"  will  be  surprised  to  find  one 
where  they  might  least  have  expected  it.  The  re- 
served Eucharist  still  hangs  suspended  in  a  pyx, 
formed  like  a  dove,  in  the  midst  of  that  lamentable 


2i6  SELECTIONS  PROM  PATER 

"  glory  "  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  the  central 
bay  of  the  sanctuary,  ail  tlie  poor,  gaudy,  gilt  rays 
converging  towards  it.  There  are  days  in  the  year 
in  which  the  great  church  is  still  literally  filled  with 
reverent  worshippers,  and  if  you  corr.e  late  to  serv-5 
ice  you  push  the  doors  in  vain  against  the  closely 
serried  shoulders  of  the  good  people  of  Amiens,  one 
and  all  in  black  for  church-holiday  attire.  Then, 
one  and  all,  they  intone  the  Tantuin  ergo  (did  it 
ever  sound  so  in  the  IMiddle  Ages?)  as  the  Euchar-i.: 
ist,  after  a  long  procession,  rises  once  more  into 
its  resting-place. 

If  the  Greeks,  as  at  least  one  of  them  says,  really 
believed  there  could  be  no  true  beauty  without  big- 
ness, that  thought  certainly  is  most  specious  in  re- 15 
gard  to  architecture;  and  the  thirteenth-century 
church  of  Amiens  is  one  of  the  three  or  four  larg- 
est buildings  in  the  world,  out  of  all  proportion  to 
any  Greek  building,  both  in  that  and  in  the  multi- 
tude of  its  external  sculpture.  The  chapels  of  the_>o 
nave  are  embellished  without  by  a  double  range  of 
single  figures,  or  groups,  commemorative  of  the 
persons,  the  mysteries,  to  which  they  are  respect- 
ively dedicated  —  the  gigantic  form  of  Christopher, 
the  Mystery  of  the  Annunciation.  25 

The  builders  of  the  church  seem  to  have  pro- 
jected no  very  noticeable  towers;  though  it  is  con- 
ventional to  regret  their  absence,  especially  with 
visitors  from  England,  where  indeed  cathedral  and 
other  towers  are  apt  to  be  good,  and  really  make  3c 
their  mark.  Robert  de  Luzarches  and  his  succes- 
sors aimed  rather  at  the  domical  outline,  with  its 
central  point  at  the  centre  of  the  church,  in  the 


NOTRE-DAME  D'AMIENS  217 

Spire,  or  Heche.  The  existing  spire  is  a  wonderful 
mass  of  carpentry  of  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  at  which  time  the  lead  that  carefully  wraps 
every  part  of  it  was  heavily  gilt.  The  great  west- 
5  ern  towers  are  lost  in  the  west  front,  the  grandest, 
perhaps  the  earliest,  example  of  its  species  —  three 
profound,  sculptured  portals ;  a  double  galley 
above,  the  upper  gallery  carrying  colossal  images 
of  twenty-two  kings  of  the  House  of  Judah,  ances- 

re  tors  of  Our  Lady ;  then  the  great  rose ;  above  it 
the  ringers'  gallery,  half  masking  the  gable  of  the 
nave,  and  uniting  at  their  topmost  storys  the  twin, 
but  not  exactly  equal  or  similar,  towers,  oddly  ob- 
long in  plan,  as  if  never  intended  to  carry  pyramids 

15  or  spires.  They  overlook  an  immense  distance  in 
those  flat,  peat-digging,  black  and  green  regions, 
with  rather  cheerless  rivers,  and  are  the  centre  of 
an  architectural  region  wider  still  —  of  a  group 
to  which  Soissons,  far  beyond  the  woods  of  Com- 

20  piegne,  belongs,  with  St.  Quentin,  and,  towards 
the  west,  a  too  ambitious  rival,  Beauvais,  which 
has  stood  however  —  what  we  now  see  of  it- — for 
six  centuries. 

It  is  a  spare,  rather  sad  world  at  most  times  that 

25  Notre-Dame  d'Amiens  thus  broods  over ;  a  coun- 
try with  little  else  to  be  proud  of ;  the  sort  of  world, 
in  fact,  which  makes  the  range  of  conceptions  em- 
bodied in  these  cliffs  of  quarried  and  carved  stone 
all  the  more  welcome  as  a  hopeful  complement  to 

30  the  meagreness  of  most  people's  present  existence, 
and  its  apparent  ending  in  a  sparely  built  coffin 
under  the  flinty  soil,  and  grey,  driving  sea-winds. 
In  Notre-Dame,  therefore,  and  her  sisters,  there 


2i8  SELECTIONS  FROM  PATER 

is  not  only  a  common  method  of  construction, 
a  single  definable  type,  different  from  that  of 
other  French  latitudes,  but  a  correspondent  com- 
mon sentiment  also ;  something  which  speaks,  amid 
an  immense  achievement  just  here  of  what  is  beau- 5 
tiful  and  great,  of  the  necessity  of  an  immense 
effort  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  of  what  you 
may  see  quaintly  designed  in  one  of  those  hiero- 
glyphic carvings  —  radix  de  terra  sitienti:  "  a  root 
out  of  a  dry  ground."  10 

(From  the  Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1894.     Miscellane- 
ous Studies,  1895.) 


NOTES 


I. — Preface  to  "The  Renaissance."  This  piece  seems  to 
have  been  actually  written  as  a  preface  to  the  volume  at 
first  named  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Renaissance,  but 
subsequently  given  the  shorter  title.  The  Conclusion 
(p.  19)  was  written  Independently. 

1:  I. — Many  attempts  ...  to  define  beauty  in 
the  abstract.  Such  was  the  aim  of  the  earlier  writers  on 
aesthetics,  beginning  with  Baumgarten  in  1750.  Later 
writers  on  the  subject  have  rather  given  up  the  purely 
speculative  consideration  of  the  "science  of  beauty,"  and 
are  more  interested  in  determining  the  causes  of  beauty 
and  the  results  of  it.  "Beauty  cannot  be  considered  as 
a  semi-transcendental  reality,"  says  a  modem  writer 
(Yrjo  Him:  The  Origins  of  Art,  London,  1900,  p.  5),  "  it 
must  be  interpreted  as  an  object  of  human  longing  and 
a  source  of  human  enjoyment."  Pater's  own  work  will 
be  seen  to  come  in  great  part  under  this  generalization. 
Those  who  wish  to  read  something  on  the  history  of  the 
matter  will  find  material  in  Bosanquet :  History  of  Esthetic, 
London,  1892,  and  Knight:  The  Philosophy  of  the  Beauti- 
ful, New  York,  1891,  of  which  vol.  I  contains  Outlines 
of  the  History  of  Esthetics. 

i:  16. — in  the  most  concrete  terms.  To  say  not  what 
is  Beauty  but,  as  in  the  next  selection,  what  are  the  beauti- 
ful things  in  the  art  of  Botticelli.  See  also  the  essay  on 
"  The  Genius  of  Plato,"  and  especially  toward  the  end. 

i:  21.  —  "To  see  the  object,  etc."  The  remark  is 
Matthew  Arnold's,  and  occurs  in  the  lectures  On  Trans- 
lating Homer  which  were  published  in  1861.  The  lectures 
were  originally  delivered  by  Arnold  at  Oxford  as  Pro- 
fessor of  Poetry  and  Pater  may  have  heard  them. 

2:  2. — in  aesthetic  criticism.  Matthew  Arnold  had 
spoken  of  the  critical  effort  in  all  branches  of  knowledge, 
theology,  philosophy,  history,  art,  science. 

2:  2. — the  first  step.  This  remark,  which  certainly 
natural  enough,  is  at  the  bottom  of  Pater's  theory. 

219 


2  20  XOTES  [P.  2,  1.8 

The  idea  often  occurs  in  the  form  of  interest  i:i  oneself. 
Cf  72: 31,  78: 30,  127: 2  2,  146: 3.  167: 24 

2:  8. — receptacles.  The  word  does  not  seem  so  ap- 
propria,te  here  as  in  4:  3.  In  this  place  the  idea  is  rather 
that  of  giving  out  than  that  of  receiving,  which  we  should 
incline  to  see  in  the  word,  following  the  essay  On  Style, 
p.  132:  26. 

2:  14. — what  sort  ...  of  pleasure.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  the  means  w^hich  Pater  uses  to  mark  the 
differences  in  pleasure.  It  is  not  easy  to  distinguish 
pleasures,  except  broadly;  let  anyone  try  to  tell  in  what 
way  the  pleasure  he  receives  from  Byron  is  different  from 
the  pleasure  he  receives  from  Wordsvv'orth.  Pater's 
method,  of  presentation  at  least,  in  The  Renaissance,  is 
to  discriminate,  not  between  the  pleasures  received,  but 
between  the  causes  of  the  pleasures,  or,  as  is  said  on  the 
next  page,  the  virtues  or  qualities  which  produce  the 
pleasures  in  question. 

2:  20. — experiences     .     .     .     strongly.     Cf.  72:    31. 

2:  28. — of  no  interest  to  him.  I.  e.,  as  an  sesthetic 
critic. 

2:  33. — more  or  less  unique.  Strictly  speaking,  nei- 
ther unique  nor  (in  this  sense)  peculiar  should  be  so  quali- 
fied.     Cf.  unique,  3:  8. 

3:  2. — the  picture,  etc.  The  value  of  this  passage  lies 
largely  in  its  indication  that  not  pictures  and  poems  only 
are  worthy  of  artistic  appreciation.  See  the  correspond- 
ing passage  in  the  Conclusion,  22:   17. 

3:  7. — A  unique  impression  of  pleasure.  But  Pater 
rarely  tries  to  analyze  these  impressions.  He  translates 
them  into  terms  of  thought. 

3:  23. — de  se  borner  ...  en  humanistes  accom- 
plis.  "  To  be  at  pains  to  know  beautiful  things  at  close 
range  and  to  feed  oneself  upon  them,  as  refined  ama- 
teurs, full-fledged  humanists." 

3:  32. — In  all  ages  .  .  .  some  excellent  work 
done.  Pater's  own  range  was  very  broad.  In  almost 
every  great  period  of  history  he  found  som^ething  beau- 
tiful. 

4:  I. — In  whom  did  the  stir  .  .  .  find  itself. 
Botticelli  is  interesting  because  "  he  has  the  freshness, 
the  uncertain  and  diffident  promise  which  belongs  to  the 
earlier  Renaissance  itself,  and  makes  it  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  period  in  the  history  of  the  mind."     18:   17. 


p.  6,1.  i]  NOTES  221 

4:  8. — not  Goethe  or  Byron  even.  This  mention  of 
Byron  is  curious.  The  common  opinion  of  Byron's 
poetry  is  that  it  is  rarely  poor  and  rarely  perfect.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  felt  that  his  work  gained  by  selection  as 
much  as  that  of  Wordsworth's. 

4:  12.— Take  .  .  .  Wordsworth.  This  example 
will  be  compared  with  the  essay  on  Wordsworth,  which 
was  published  the  year  after  The  Renaissance,  and  very 
possibly  may  have  been  already  written  when  these  lines 
were  composed.  The  idea  of  11.  23-28,  at  least,  is  more 
fully  developed  in  the  essay,  pp.  28-37.     Cf.  also  45:   22. 

5:  I. — the  following  studies.  As  has  been  noted,  the 
book  was  at  first  named  Siitdies  in  the  History  of  the  Re- 
naissance. It  contained  essays  on  Aucassin  and  Nicolette, 
as  representative  of  the  earlier  Renaissance,  on  Pico  della 
Mirandola,  Botticelli,  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  Luca  della 
Robbia,  Michael  Angelo,  as  typical  of  Renaissance  philos- 
ophy, painting,  sculpture,  poetry,  and  on  Du  Bellay, 
representing  the  later  Renaissance.  To  these  an  earlier 
essay  on  Winckelmann  is  added  for  reasons  given  at  the 
end  of  the  Preface. 

5:  7. — that  revival  of  classical  antiquity.  This  nar- 
rower use  of  the  word  "  Renaissance  "  is  not  now  common; 
the  phrase  Revival  of  Learning  is  more  usual. 

5:  14. — traced  far  into  the  Middle  Age.  The  date  of 
Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  alluded  to  in  the  next  sentence, 
is  in  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Abelard, 
whom  Pater  also  has  in  mind,  was  a  century  earlier.  Cf. 
Pater's  mention  of  the  "  novel,  humanistic  movements 
of  religion  itself  at  that  period  "  (the  thirteenth  century) 
in  speaking  of  the  Cathedral  of  Amiens,  205:  5,  and  also 
the  story  of  Denys  VAuxerrois,  particularly  p.  103. 

5:  22. — two  little  compositions.  In  the  first  edition 
the  first  essay  was  on  Aticassin  and  Nicolette,  but  in  the 
second  and  later  editions  the  story  of  Amis  and  A  mile 
is  included  under  the  title  Ticv  Early  French  Stories. 

6:  I. — the  charm  of  asepsis.  The  idea  of  asceticism 
is  not  consistent  with  the  impression  made  by  the  Con- 
clusion to  The  Renaissance.  What  Pater  understood  by 
ascesis  was  not  precisely  the  same  thing;  it  was  a  different 
conception,  which  had  a  fascination  for  him  throughout 
life,  as  we  can  see  by  comparing  this  early  mention  with 
that  in  Plato  and  Platonism  (e.  g.,  p.  253),  which  came 
at  the  end  of  his  life.     There  is  constant  reference  to  the 


2  22  NOTES  [P.  7, 1.21 

same  thing  almost  everywhere,  for  instance.  27:  23  and 
note,  199:  28,  168:   I,  133:   29. 

7:  21. — by    his    Hellenism.     This  was  in  Pater's  mind 

a  most  essential  characteristic  of  the  Renaissance.  Thus 
the  earlier  Renaissance  just  mentioned  is  prompted  to 
seek  after  the  springs  of  perfect  sweetness  in  the  Hellenic 
world,  and  in  the  essay  here  reprinted  Botticelli's  Venus 

■is  a  more  "  direct  inlet  [for  us]  into  the  Greek  temper 
than  the  works  of  the  Greeks  themselves,  even  of  the 
finest  period."      13:  20. 

8. — Sandro  Botticelli.  In  reading  this  essay,  the  stu- 
dent will  want  to  have  at  hand  some  authority  w^hich 
will  give  not  only  a  statement  of  the  main  facts  about 
Botticelli,  but  also  an  idea  of  his  chief  pictures.  The 
volume  in  Knackfuss'  series  of  Kiinstler  Alonographien 
(Leipzig,  1897)  is  the  most  useful  help — it  has  just  been 
published  in  a  translation — and  the  eighty-nine  cuts  will 
be  extremely  illustrative  of  this  essay.  A  substitute  for 
this  volume  may  be  found  in  Masters  in  Art  for  May, 
1900  (Bates  and  Gould:  Boston),  which  gives  ten  of 
Botticelli's  pictures,  including  the  more  important  of 
those  here  mentioned.  There  will  also,  presumably,  be 
a  volume  in  the  series  of  Great  Masters  tn  Painting  and 
Sculpture  (Macmillan:  New  York),  but  it  is  not  yet  an- 
nounced. 

8:  I. — Leonardo's  treatise  on  painting.  Pater  wrote 
of  it  in  his  essay  on  Leonardo  {The  Renaissance,  p.  no) 
as  "  the  well-ordered  treatise  on  painting  w^hich  a  French- 
man, Raffaelle  du  Fresne,  one  hundred  years  afterwards, 
compiled  from  Leonardo's  bewildered  manuscripts." 

8:  5. — people  have  begun.  The  history  of  the  dis- 
covery by  the  English  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  painters 
has  never  been  carefully  written.     The  name  of  Botti- 

'Yelli  does  not  appear  in  English  art  criticism  until  1850 
at  least.  Ruskin  does  not  seem  to  have  become  well 
acquainted  with  Botticelli  until  187 1.  Mr.  Collingwood 
says  that  "  Mr.  Ruskin's  first  mention  of  Botticelli  was 
in  the  course  on  landscape  "  in  the  Lent  term  of  that 
year  {Life  oj  John  Ruskin:  ii.  424,  note),  which  was  some 
time  after  the  publication  of  this  essay  in  the  Fortnightly. 
Considering  Ruskin's  way  of  speaking  of  whatever  was 
in  his  mind,  we  may  infer  from  his  not  speaking  of  Botti- 
celli that  he  was  not  much  interested  in  him.  Two 
painters  whom  he  did  study  during  the  sixties,  Luini  and 
Carpaccio,  he  immediately  mentioned  in  the  same  tm- 


p.  10,1.  1 8]  NOTES  223 

measured  terms  which  he  used  of  BotticeiH  in  the  year 
1872    {The  Eagle's  Nest:  Preface). 

8:  8. — In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  1447- 
1510.      But  Botticelli  did  little  toward  the  end  of  his  life. 

8:.  1 1. —  the  great  imaginative  workmen  of  its  close. 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  1452-1 519;  Michael  Angelo,  1475- 
1564;   Raphael,   1483-1520. 

8:  13. — Giotto.  1 276-1337,  and  therefore  contempo- 
rary with  Dante. 

8:   17. — Dante.     1265-13  21. 

8:  17. — Boccaccio.  1313-1375.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  long  before  the  time  of  Botticelli  Italy  had  already 
three  of  the  greatest  names  in  her  literature. 

8:  17.  —  new  readings  ...  of  classical  stories. 
Pater  may  have  had  in  mind  the  Mars  and  Venus  of  the 
National  Gallery,  London,  or  the  Prhnavera,  or  the  Birth 
of  Venus  spoken  of  on  p.  15.  Another  excellent  example, 
which  Pater  did  not  have  in  mind,  for  it  was  not  discovered 
until  after  his  death,  is  the  Pallas  and  a  Centaur. 

8:  22. — the  peculiar  sensation.  The  Preface  puts  this 
idea  in  general  form.     3:  7. 

9:  4. — Vasari.     The  author  of  Lives  of  Artists,  1550. 

9:  8. — Sandro  is  a  nickname.  The  Renaissance  paint- 
ers often  went  by  names  that  seem  to  us  curious.  Mas- 
saccio  (11:  8)  was  named  Tomaso;  "Hulking  Tom," 
Browning  calls  him.  The  name  Ghirlandajo  (11:  8) 
means  "  the  garland  maker."  Many  of  the  names  were 
not  so  unusual.  II  Giorgione  was  named  Giorgio  Bar- 
barelli;  Pietro  Vannucci  is  called  Perugino  because  he 
was  a  citizen  of  Perugia. 

9:  14. — the  influence  of  Savonarola.  The  religious  re- 
vival of  Savonarola  was  in  1492,  when  Savonarola  was 
Prior  of  St.  Marks. 

9:  23. — Earlier.  Something  of  the  sort  has  happened, 
for  the  date  of  Botticelli's  death  is  now  set  at  May  17, 
1510. 

10:  13. — three  phases  of  the  same  scene.  He  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  represent  Dante  turning  his  head  to  look 
over  his  shoulder  by  giving  the  poet  two  heads  (PI.  III.  of 
the  Paradiso) .  But  this  was  nothing  individual  to  Botti- 
celli; it  was  an  artistic  convention  a  thousand  years  old 
and  more.  Pater  alludes  to  it  merely  to  indicate  the 
painter's  imagination. 

10:  18. — not  rather  chosen  .  .  .  the  Purgatorio. 
In  reahty,  Botticelli  did  illustrate  the  Purgatorio;  in  fact, 


2  24  yOTJiJS  [P.  II,  1.  lo 

the  whole  Divine  Comedy.  There  arc  ninety-six  of  these 
plates  now  known,  although  Pater  was  not  acquainted 
with  them  all.  They  have  been  reprinted  in  Botiicellts 
Drawings  Illustrative  of  Dante's  Inferno.  Edited  by 
F.  Lippnian,  Director  of  the  Imperial  Museum,  Berlin. 

II :  lo. — dramatic  not  visionary.  The  distinction  is 
not  at  first  sight  quite  clear.  "We  are  apt  to  think  of 
a  thing  as  dramatic  when  the  spirit  of  it  is  made  strikingly 
apparent  by  what  is  seen.  A  dramatic  moment  is  one 
in  which  the  emotion  or  sentiment  is  strongly  impressed 
upon  us  b}^  what  we  see  of  the  action  and  expression. 
Pater  means  that  the  dramatic  painter  makes  that  which 
is  seen  express  its  spirit,  while  the  visionary  painter  makes  > 
any  particular  set  of  forms  express  his  own  spirit.  He 
sees  what  everybody  else  sees,  but,  as  in  the  next  sentence 
but  one,  he  sees  in  it  something  that  others  do  not.  With 
this  may  be  compared  some  of  Pater's  own  criticism,  as 
of  Botticelli's  Madonnas  and  of  the  Birth  of  Venus,  as  well 
as  the  very  famous  description  of  La  Gioconda  in  the 
essay  on  Leonardo,  of  which  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde  and  M.  Paul 
Bourget  have  both  remarked  that  the  picture  calls  up  in 
Pater's  mind  ideas  which  it  did  not  call  up  even  in  the 
mind  of  the  painter. 

II :  25.  —  conventional  orthodoxy.  Cf.  "simple  for- 
mula," just  below,   "facile  orthodoxy,"  22:31. 

12:  22.  —  come  and  go  across  him.  He  considered  it 
and  got  from  it  what  appealed  to  him,  or,  possibly,  merely 
comprehended  it. 

12:  26. — the  wistfulness  of  exiles.  Pater's  own  char- 
acters—  Denys  I'Auxrerrois,  Sebastian  van  Storck,  Eme- 
rald Uthwart,  and  the  others — have  something  of  this  dis- 
placement about  them. 

12:  32. — Botticelli  accepts.  So,  it  would  seem,  did 
Pater  himself,  more  and  more  as  he  grew  older.  ' 

13:  12. — from  which  they  shrink.  Not  necessarily, 
however,  from  fear  of  them. 

13*  25. — depress  their  heads  so  naively.  To  get  them 
into  the  picture. 

13:  26.— Perhaps  you  have  sometimes  wondered  why 
those  peevish-looking  Madonnas.  Cf.  Pater's  remark  on 
unconscious  scanning  lines.      124:  30. 

14:  10. — always  far  from  her.  Often,  but  not  always, 
if  we  m.ay  trtist  to  photographs.  Cf.,  among  others,  the 
Virgin  and  Child  with  St.  John  at  the  Louvre. 


p.  19.]  NOTES,  22s 

14:  16. — Once  indeed.  In  the  picture  of  the  Madonna 
in  the  Uffizzi:  the  picture  is  sometimes  called  TJie  Mag- 
nificat. 

15:  6. — the  faultless  nude  studies  of  Ingres.  The 
classic  example  is  La  Source  in  the  Louvre. 

17:  4. — other  episodes.  A  well-known  example  is  the 
Mars  and  Venus  m  the  National  Gallery,  London. 

17:  10. — tradition  connects  it  with  Simonetta.  It  is 
interesting  here  to  read  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett's  imaginative 
criticism  in  Quaitrocentisteria  in  Earthwork  Out  of  Tus- 
cany, p.  74.  Also,  so  far  as  the  picture  of  Judith  is  con- 
cerned, in  pp.  67-71. 

18:  9. — a  peculiar  quality  of  pleasure.  In  the  preface 
(3:  8,  8:  22)  it  is  held  that  this  is  the  characterisitic  of  all 
artists.  But  this  essay  was  the  first  v\'ritten,  and  very 
possible  we  see  here  the  first  form  of  an  idea  which  was 
developed  further. 

""  1 9. ^Conclusion.  This  Conclusion  to  the  Studies  in 
the  History  of  the  Renaissance  was  written  in  1868,  ap- 
parently before  any  of  the  Studies  themselves,  except 
that  on  Winckelmann.  It  was  omitted  in  the  second 
edition  (1877),  as  is  noted  in  the  introduction  (p.  xx), 
and  was  replaced  in  the  third  (1888)  with  the  following 
note: 

"  This  brief  'Conclusion'  was  omitted  in  the  second 
edition  of  this  book,  as  I  conceived  it  might  possibly 
mislead  some  of  those  young  men  into  whose  hands  it 
might  fall.  On  the  whole,  I  have  thought  it  best  to 
reprint  it  here,  with  some  slight  changes  which  bring  it 
closer  to  my  original  meaning.  I  have  dealt  more  fully 
in  Marius  the  Epicurean  with  the  thoughts  suggested  by 
it." 

For  the  thoughts  suggested  by  it  in  Marius,  see  the 
introduction  (p.  xxxvi).  The  changes  are  noted  at  the 
places  where  they  occur.  They  are  about  a  dozen  in 
number,  and  are  generally  substitutions  of  words  or  trans- 
lations of  quotations.  Three  are  more  significant,  namely, 
those  on  21:  24,  22:  32,  23:  27.  In  the  first  two  the  ob- 
ject of  the  changes  is  to  remove  a  reference  to  religion, 
and  the  third  is  of  something  the  same  character.  Prob- 
ably Pater  did  not  have  these  passages  in  mind  when  he 
said  that  the  changes  were  meant  to  bring  the  text  closer 
to  his  original  meaning.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  he  had 
at  first  the  ideas  given  by  the  changes;  it  seems  more 
likely  that  as  time  went  on  Pater  felt  that  it  was  better 


226  NOTES  [P.  19 

not  to  suggest  the  bearing  on  religion  of  his  opinions.  In 
all  probability,  too,  his  view  of  religion  had  changed 
somewhat,  as  may  be  gathered  from  Marius  some  years 
before  the  Conclusion  was  restored, 

19. —  Aytei  Ttov  ' Hpau Aslto?.  The  phrase  occurs 
in  the  Cratylus  of  Plato.  Heraclitus  says,  "  All  things 
give  way:  nothing  remaineth."  This  is  the  translation 
given  by  Pater  in  the  first  chapter  of  Plato  and  Plaionism 
(p.  9),  which  takes  quite  a  different  direction  from  the 
same  starting  point.  In  fact,  the  ephemerism  of  the 
Conclusion  is  not  precisely  consistent  with  the  later  view 
there  presented,  nor,  of  course,  need  it  be.  See  introduc- 
tion, p.  xxxix. 

19:  I. — To  regard  .  .  .  modern  thought.  Pater 
probably  had  in  mind  here  the  result  of  the  philosophy 
of  Hegel,  a  philosopher  who  had  a  certain  attraction  for 
him,  although  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  much  in- 
fluenced by  him.  The  passage,  "  Fix  upon  it,"  etc.  (1.  5), 
may  be  very  curiously  compared  with  the  statement  of 
Hegel's  idea  given  by  Royce  in  his  Spirit  of  Modern  Phi- 
losophy, p.  204.  Later,  however.  Pater  thought  rather 
more  of  Darwin,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  chapter  of  Plato 
and  Platonism. 

19:  23. — gesture.  In  the  etymological  sense,  not  at 
all  common  now,  of  bearing,  behavior,  presumably  one's 
general  way  of  passing  from  birth  to  death. 

19:  24. — violets.  Suggested  by  the  words  of  Laertes 
over  the  grave  of  Ophelia.     Cf.  also  60:  31. 

20:  31. — that  thick  wall  of  personality.  The  im- 
possibility of  real  communication  was  one  of  the  sceptical 
principles  of  Gorgias,  and  doubtless  of  other  sophists. 
From  his  day  to  the  present  it  has  every  now  and  then 
been  affirmed  and  denied  by  one  or  another.  Pater  does 
not  anywhere  express  his  view  upon  the  matter  with  pre- 
cision, but  his  Imaginary  Portraits  are  chiefly  of  young 
men  who  in  some  degree  illustrate  the  position.  See 
introduction,  p.  xlviii. 

21 :  5. — Analysis  .  .  .  assures  us.  The  first  edi- 
tion reads  tells  us,  and  also  further.ior  farther. 

21:  II.  —  all  that  is  actual  in  it.  Cf.  here  especially 
the  passage  on  Hegel  .in  Royce. 

21:   18. — real.     The  first  edition  italicized  the  word. 

21:  18. — It  is  .  .  .  impressions.  The  first  edition 
reads,  "  It  is  with  the  movement,  the  passage  and  disso- 
lution of  impressions,  etc." 


p.  23, 1.  26]  NOTES  S27 

21:  23. — Philosophiren     .     .     .      vivificiren.     "To    be 

a  philosopher  is  to  nd  oneself  of  inertia,  to  come  to  life." 
Novalis  was  the  pseudonym  of  Friedrich  von  Hardenberg, 
1772-1801. 

21:  24.— of  speculative  culture  ...  to  startle  it. 
The  first  edition  reads,  "  And  of  religion  and  culture  as 
well  to  the  human  spirit  is  to  startle  it." 

21:  31. — Not  the  fruit  .  .  .  is  the  end.  "Another 
factor  of  the  distinction  is  that  whereas,  in  the  perception 
of  beauty,  our  judgment  is  necessarily  intrinsic,  and  based 
on  the  character  of  the  immediate  experience,  and  never 
consciously  on  the  idea  of  an  eventual  utility  in  the  object; 
judgments  about  moral  worth,  on  the  contrary,  are  always 
based,  when  they  are  positive,  upon  the  consciousness  of 
benefits  involved."  Santayana:  The  Sense  of  Beauty, 
p.  23.  The  comment  in  succeeding  pages  brings  out  some 
interesting  ideas. 

22:  I. — How  .  .  .  finest  senses?  The  senses  trained 
to  the  most  delicate  discrimination. 

22:  8. — In  a  sense  it  might  even  be  said  that  our. 
These  words  were  added  in  the  third  edition,  as  well  as 
after  all  in  the  next  line. 

22:  19. — Not  to  discriminate.  I.  e.,  to  be  a  critic,  as 
in  the  Preface,  3:  11-20.  But  it  means  really  to  appre- 
ciate: for  if  two  differing  things  are  thought  or  felt  by 
us  to  be  precisely  the  same,  it  is  only  because  we  do  not 
know  or  feel  what  it  is  that  makes  each  thing  itself.  If 
we  think  of  two  things  which  are  different  as  being  the 
same,  it  is  unimportant  which  we  think  of.  If  we  see  no 
difference  between  Scott,  say,  and  the  historical  novels 
of  our  day,  it  is  indifferent  to  us  which  we  read;  we  shall, 
in  fact,  not  know  which  we  are  reading  except  by  accident. 

22:  32. — Philosophical  theories  or  ideas.  The  first 
edition  read.  Theories,  religious  or  philosophical  ideas. 

23:  2.  —  "Philosophy  is  the  microscope  of  thought." 
The  first  edition  gave  the  quotation  in  French. 

23:  8.  —  no  real  claim.  "Some  interest  into  which 
we  cannot  enter  "  would  seem  to  be  the  key  to  the  sen- 
tence. If  we  really  cannot,  it  may  have  no  real  claim, 
but  often  enough  cannot  stands  for  "  do  not  wish  to." 

23:  20. — we  .  .  .  reprieve.  The  first  edition  does 
not  have  the  translation. 

23:  26. — at  least  among  "the  children  of  this  world." 
This  curious  qualification  does  not  appear  in  the  first 
edition. 


228  NOTES  [P.  23,  1.  28 

23:  28 — lies.     The  first  edition  reads  "is." 

23:  30- — Great.     The  first  edition  reads  "  High." 

23:  32. — the  various  forms      ...      to  many  of  us. 

The  tir'st  edition  reads,  "  Politieal  or  rehgious  enthusiasm, 
or  the  '  enthusiasm  of  humanity.'  " 

24:  4. — art  for  art's  sake.  The  expression  came  to 
a  painful  currency,  often  in  uses  inconsistent  with  the 
present  context. 

25. — Wordsworth.  This  essay  should  be  read  with  a 
copy  of  Wordsworth's  poems  in  hand,  for  only  so  will  one 
get  an  idea  of  how  permeated  with  Wordsworth  is  the 
very  language  of  the  essay.  The  notes  generally  indicate 
the  sources  of  quotations  or  manifest  allusions,  but  there 
is  much  more  which  is  Pater's  expression  of  the  spirit  of 
Wordsworth.  The  references  are  to  the  page  and  column 
of  the  Globe  edition  of  Wordsworth  (Macm.illan's). 

25:  I. — Some  English  critics.  Especially  Coleridge,  of 
whom  Pater  had  already  written,  "  His  prose  works  are 
one  long  explanation  of  all  that  is  involved  in  that  famous 
distinction  between  the  fancy  and  the  imagination,"  Ap- 
preciations, p.  88.  More  particularly,  however,  see  the 
Biographia  Literaria,  Chap.  IV.  and  following.  Leigh 
Hunt  might  also  be  mentioned,  who  entitled  a  book 
Imagination  and  Fancy,  which  begins  with  a  discussion 
of  the  matter  in  an  "Answer  to  the  question,  What  is 
Poetry?"  Ruskin,  too,  may  be  noted,  though  not  of  the 
beginning  of  the  century;  he  writes  on  the  subject  in 
Modern  Painters,  Pr.  HI.,  sec.  ii.,  chap,  iii.,  ^7.  It  does 
not  appear  that  Hazlitt,  De  Quincey,  Lamb  or  Jeffries 
thought  much  on  the  matter. 

25:  6. — This  metaphysical  distinction.  It  is  not  easy 
to  define  it,  for  its  sponsors  usually  contented  themselves 
with  illustration.  The  Century  Dictionary,  s.  v.  Imagi- 
nation, speaking  of  synonyms,  has  a  distinction  which 
appears  to  be  much  the  same.  The  miodern  psychologist 
seems  to  care  little  for  it,  and  the  modern  critic  will  do 
well  enough  if  he  thinks  of  serious  imagination  and  trivial 
imagination,  or,  as  Pater  himself  says,  imagination  more 
mtense  and  concentrated,  or  less. 

25:  6. — borrowed  originally.  Coleridge  received  many 
suggestions  from  the  Germans — in  this  case,  perhaps, 
from  Kant  and  SchelHng.  He  himself  says,  however, 
"  Repeated  meditations  led  me  first  to  suspect  (and  a  more 
intimate  analysis  of  the  human  faculties,  their  appropriate 
marks,  functions  and  efiects  matured  my  conjecture  into 


p.  26,  1.  1 8]  NOTES  229 

conviction)  that  Fancy  and  Imagination  were  widely 
differing  functions,"  Biographia  Lileraria,  Chap.  IV. 
Afterwards  he  seems  to  indicate  that  Wordsworth  thought 
of  the  matter  first:  "  On  which,"  he  writes,  "  a  poem  of 
his  first  directed  my  attention." 

25:  16. — it  was  Wordsworth  who  made  the  most  of  it. 
Wordsworth's  handling  of  ithe  subject  is  in  his  Preface 
of  1815,  Globe  edition,  pp.  878-885.  It  is  not  accurate 
to  say  that  this  distinction  was  the  basis  for  final  classi- 
fication. Wordsvv'orth's  basis,  so  far  as  he  had  any  real 
basis,  as  stated  in  that  Preface,  was  a  combination  of 
"  the  powers  of  mind  predominant  in  the  production  of 
them  [of  which  Imagination  and  Fancy  constituted  in 
Wordsworth's  analysis  one  out  of  six  divisions],  or  to  the 
mold  in  which  they  are  cast,  or  lastly  to  the  subject  to 
which  they  relate." 

25:  23. — For  nowhere  .  .  .  character  at  all.  So 
thought  Matthew  Arnold,  who,  some  years  afterward, 
made  the  skillful  anthology,  spoken  of  on  the  next  page, 
on  lines  different  from  Pater's,  and  yet  including  all  the 
poems  that  Pater  valued  most  highly. 

25:  26. — much  conventional  sentiment.  As  an  ex- 
ample may  be  offered  "  The  Blind  Highland  Boy  "  (p.  197.) 
In  this  poem  W^ordsworth  desires  to  tell  how  a  Highland 
boy  sailed  across  a  loch  in  a  washtub.  In  order  to  be 
more  elegant,  he  substituted  for  the  washtub  a  turtle 
shell.  It  is  proper  to  add  that  he  did  so  "in  deference  to 
the  opinion  of  a  friend." 

25:  27. — insincere  poetic  diction.  Examples  of  a 
word  or  two  may  be  readily  found,  and  longer  examples 
in  cases  where  his  subject  was  a  little  prosaic.  Thus 
when  a  sick  girl  liked  to  look  at  a  stuffed  owl,  Wordsworth 
wrote  (6562), 

"  While  Anna's  peers  and  early  playmates  tread, 
In  freedom,  mountain-turf  and  river's  marge; 
Or  float  with  music  in  the  festal  barge; 
Rein  the  proud  steed,  or  through  the  dance  are  led; 
Her  doom  it  is  to  press  a  weary  bed,"  etc. 

26:  I.  —  the  reaction  in  his  political  ideas.  In  youth 
he  had  been  a  Republican  strong  for  the  Rights  of  Man. 
The  French  Revolution,  as  here  remarked,  made  him 
more  conservative,  with  the  result  of  suggesting  an  idea 
to  Robert  Browning. 

26:  18 — Of  all  poets  equally  great.  Matthew  Arnold 
cri^d  the  experim.ent  v/ith  Byron,  but  without  success. 


230  NOTES  [P.  26,  1.  24 

26:  24. — ever  tending  to  become.  Surely  not,  unless 
we  feel  that  everybody  is  tending  to  become  the  best  he 
is  capable  of. 

27:  9. — that     old    fancy      .      .      .      divine    possession. 

Wordsworth,  most  of  modern  poets,  has  so  regarded  it. 
He  thought  of  himself  as 

"  A  renovated  spirit  singled  out 
for  holy  services." 

The  Prelude.      236I. 

27:  17. — an  excellent  ...  art  and  poetry.  This 
idea  of  a  rigorous  training  was  one  that  made  a  strong 
appeal  to  Pater,  as  has  been  remarked  in  the  introduction. 

27:  23. — a  right  discipline  of  the  temper.  In  writing 
of  Emerald  Uthwart  at  school  (Miscellaneous  Studies, 
p.  182),  Pater  says:  "It  would  misrepresent  Uthwart's 
wholly  unconscious  humility  to  say  that  he  felt  the  beauty 
of  the  ocGHrfGi^  (we  need  that  Greek  word)  to  which  he 
not  merely  finds  himself  subject,  but  as  under  a  fascina- 
tion submissively  yields  himself,  although  another  might 
have  been  aware  of  the  charm  of  it,  half  ethic,  half  physi- 
cal, as  visibly  effective  in  him." 

27:  25. — the  promise  that  he  has  much.  So  of  Plato. 
"  What  he  would  promote,  then,  is  the  art,  the  literature, 
of  which  among  other  things  it  may  be  said  that  it  solicits 
a  certain  effort  from  the  reader  or  spectator,  who  is  prom- 
ised a  great  expressiveness  on  the  part  of  the  writer,  the 
artist,  if  he  for  his  part  will  bring  with  him  a  great  at- 
tentiveness."  Plato  and  Platonism,  p.  253.  For  the 
same  thing  from  the  writer's  standpoint,  see  the  essay  on 
Style.      130:  17-31. 

28:  12.  —  the  electric  thread  untwined.  Pater  may 
have  had  in  mind  some  process  of  electrolysis,  as,  for  in- 
stance, that  by  which  gold  is  deposited  from  cyanide  of 
potassium. 

28:  14. — What  are  the  peculiarities  of  this  residue? 
The  determination  of  these  peculiarities  is,  of  course,  the 
function  of  the  critic,  as  in  3:  14,  8:  22. 

28:  14. — What  special  sense  .  .  .  satisfy?  This 
question  Pater  answers  quite  directly,  the  first  part  in 
pp.  28-35,  ^^'^  the  second  in  pp.  35-37  and  39,  40. 

28:  16. — What  are  the  subjects?  This  question  and 
the  next  are  rather  implied  in  that  preceding. 

28:  22. — An  intimate  consciousness.  It  is  of  interest 
to  compare  with  this  remark  Ruskin's  tracing  the  feehng 


p.  30, 1,  i]  NOTES  231 

of  the  -classic,  the  medieval  and  the  modem  world  for 
landscape,  in  Modern  Painters,  Pt.  IV.,  Chap.  XIII. -XVI. 
Cf.  also  Matthew  Arnold  on  the  Celtic  Appreciation  of 
Nature,  Celtic  Literature,  Lect.  VI. 

28:  31. — Senancour.  Ohermann  is  a  book  very  typical 
of  the  first  years  of  the  century.  It  represents  a  sort  of 
discontent  with  life  that  afterwards  became  quite  con- 
ventional. Obermann  turned  constantly  from  man  to 
lature.  The  locus  classic  us  is  the  passage  on  the  birch 
tree  in  Letter  XI.,  because  it  is  quoted  by  Matthew  Arnold 
in  his  essay  on  Maurice  de  Guerin.  The  whole  passage 
is  interesting  here  because  it  is  comparable  to  the  begin- 
ning of  The  Prelude  or  the  Lines  on  Tintern  Abbey:  Ober- 
mann is  recalling  his  early  feeling  for  nature  in  visits  to 
the  forest  of  Fontainebleau. 

28:  3i.^Theophile  Gautier.  Among  his  poems.  La 
Source  is  a  good  example;  it  shows  attraction  to  nature 
and  observation,  joined  to  a  cheerful  cynicism  and  a  com- 
plete absence  of  anything  but  personification  of  the  con- 
ventional poetic  sort. 

29:  I. — traced  from  Rousseau.  See,  for  instance,  Pel- 
lissier:  The  Literary  Movement  in  France  During  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  (English  Tnmslation),  pp.  30,  74. 

29:  4. — those  pantheistic  theories.  Pater  had  Goethe 
and  Schelling  especially  in  mind,  if  we  may  judge  from 
Plato  and  Platonism,  p.   151. 

29:  7. — the  graver  writings  of  historians.  I  cannot 
say  where,  unless  it  be  in  some  of  the  applications  of  the 
Darwinian  theory  to  the  history  of  institutions,  as  with 
those  who  hold  that  the  State  is  an  organism,  etc. 

29:  9.  —  ancient  and  modern  landscape  art.  See  the 
reference  to  Ruskin,  or  Modern  Painters'  passim. 

29:  II. — Of  this  new  sense.  The  student  who  desires 
to  follow  the  course  of  the  interest  in  nature  will  find  in 
Palgrave's  Landscape  in  Poetry  a  pleasant  and  chatty 
review. 

29:  ZZ- — The  cuckoo  and  it^  echo. 

"  While  I  am  lying  on  the  grass 
Thy  twofold  shout  I  hear." 

To  the  Cuckoo.      204^. 

30:  I. — Resolution  and  Independence.  To  understand 
this  remark,  the  poem  must  be  re-read  or  vividly  remem- 
bered; imagery,  in  the  next  line,  means  visible  imagery 
(not  figurative),  as  a  Httle  later. 


232  NOTES  [P.  30 

30.— "The  pliant  harebell."     From  the  Prelude,  Bk.  X. 
p.  310I. 

30.— "The  single  sheep."     From  the  Prelude,  Bk.  XII. 
p.  324^ 

30. — "And  in    the    meadows."     The  Prelude,  Bk.  IV. 
2612. 

30. — "And  that  green  com."     The  Pet  Lamb,  140^. 
30:  10. — noble  sound     .     .     .     nobler  types. 
"  And  beauty  bom  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall  pass  into  her  face." 

Three   Years  She  Grew.      115^. 
30:  12. — "profaned"  by     .     .     .     image. 

"  Whate'er  there  is  of  power  in  sound 
To  breathe  an  elevated  mood,  by  form. 
Or  image  unprofaned." 

The  Prelude.  Bk.  II.  2472, 
30:  15.  —  abstract  and  elementary  impressions.  The 
Wordsworthian  will  think  of  many  examples.  Pater 
seems  to  have  had  the  Prelude  particularly  in  mind  in 
writing  this  essay.  The  following  citations  offer  illustra- 
tion of  Wordsworth's  dealing  with  silence,  darkness,  abso- 
lute motionlessness,  noted  in  1.   16. 

"  And  in  the  sheltered  and  the  sheltering  grove 
A  perfect  stillness." 

The  Prelude.     Int.      236^. 
"  And  I  would  stand 
If  the  night  blackened  with  a  coming  storm." 

The  Prelude.     Bk.   II.      2472 
"  I  was  alone 
And  seemed  to  be  a  trouble  to  the  peace 
That  dwelt  among  them." 

The  Prelude.     Bk.   I.   239I. 
30:  18. — The  long  white  road. 

"  The  bare  white  roads 
Lengthening  in  solitude  their  dreary  line." 

The  Prelude.     Bk.   XIII.     328I. 
30:  20. — a  special  day  or  hour  even. 

"  There  are  in  our  existence  spots  of  time 
That  with  distinct  pre-eminence  retain 
A  renovating  virtue     *     *     * 
This  efficacious  spirit  chiefly  lurks 
Among  those  passages  of  life  that  give 
Profoundest  knowledge  of  what  point,  and  how, 
The  mind  is  lord  and  master." 

The  Prelude.     Bk.  XII.     3222. 


p.  33,  1.17]  NOTES  233 

31:  7. — but  lately  published.  The  Recluse  was  first 
published  in  1888.  In  a  note  to  this  essay,  Pater  gives 
an  account  of  the  relation  to  the  Prelude  and  the  Excur- 
sion of  the  one  book  written  and  published,  and  gives  a 
quotation  from  it,  the  passage  beginning:  "And  thickets 
full  of  songsters,"  p.  336^. 

31:  17. — a  moral  or  spiritual  life. 

"  To  every  natural  form,  rock,  fruits,  or  flower, 
Even  the  loose  stones  that  cover  the  highway, 
I  gave  a  moral  life." 

The  Prelude.     Bk.   III.      25  ii. 

31 :  20. — An  emanation.  See  the  first  lines  of  the  Ex- 
cursion.    Bk.  IX. 

31:  21. — but  to  the  distant  peak. 

"  When,  from  behind  that  craggy  steep,  till  then 
The  horizon's  bound,  a  huge  peak,  black  and  huge, 
As  if  with  voluntary  power  instinct, 
Upreared  its  head." 

The  Prelude.     Bk.   I.      240^. 

31 :  24. — to  the  lichened  Druidic  stone  even.  I  am 
doubtful  of  the  proper  passage  here;  it  may  be  Guilt  and 
Sorrow,  St.  XIV,  23,  or  it  may  be  the  stones  in  The  Ex- 
cursion, Bk.  Ill,  although  these  last  are  not  Druid  stones, 
but  only  like  them. 

31:  27. — "survival."  The  word  is  in  quotations  be- 
cause used  in  its  biological  sense. 

31 :  29. — that  primitive  condition  .  .  .  many  strange 
aftergrowths.  There  is  a  rapid  resume  of  the  appear- 
ances of  animism  in  the  history  of  thought  in  Plato  and 
Platonism  (p.  151).  It  is  too  long  to  quote  wholly,  but 
the  mention  of  Wordsworth  is  joined  to  that  of  Shelley 
as  those  "  for  whom  clouds  and  peaks  are  kindred  spirits." 
See  also  later  3g:  11. 

32:  17. — And  it  was  .  .  .  human  life.  The  idea 
mil  be  found  in  The  Prelude,  VIII,  294. 

32:  20. — an  accidental  grace.     From  The  Prelude,  VIII. 

295^- 

33:  5.  —  The  leech-gatherer.  Resolution  and  Inde- 
pendence. 

33:  6. — the  woman  "stepping  westward."     P.   192. 

33:  8. — the  aged  thorn.     The  Thorn. 

33:  8. — the  lichened  rock.  Resolution  and  Inde- 
pendence, St.  IX. 

33:  17. — The  poet  of  Surrey.  "As  after  many  wan- 
derings 1  have  come  to  fancy  that  some  parts  of  Surrey 


234  NOTES  [P.  33,  1.19 

and  Kent  are,  for  Englishmen,  the  true  landscape,  the 
true  home-counties."      The  Child  in  the  House.     53:  25. 

33:  19. — write  a  little  about  them.  As  in  Descrip- 
tive Sketches,  and  so  also  in  The  Prelude,  Bk.  VI. 

33:  22. — religious  sentiment.  See  Marius  the  Epi- 
curean, Chaps.   XXI.,  XXVI. 

34:  3 — the  low  walls  .  .  .  the  half  obliterated 
epitaphs.  Probably  the  church  in  The  Excursion,  Bk.  V,  47 1^. 

34:  10. — "Grave  livers."  The  words  are  from  Reso- 
lution and  Independence,  St.  XIV,  as  are  the  words  stately 
speech  in  the  next  line. 

34:  30.  —  that  sincerity.  Art  was  nothing  without 
that.     Cf.  pp.  129:22,   146:7,  and  elsewhere. 

35:  2. — "related  .  .  .  men."  The  quotation  is 
from  the  Preface  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads  (p.  8502).  The 
next  sentence  epitomizes  Wordsworth's  theory  of  diction. 

35 :  3 1  • — Michael,  Ruth.  In  the  poems  named  after  them. 
"  The  great  distinguishing  passion  "  is  in  these  cases  the 
same:  it  is  hope  which  has  been  deceived  and  is  reconciled. 

36:  2. — George  Sand.  The  first  of  her  pastorals  is  La 
Mare  au  Viable;  the  most  famous  is  La  Petite  Fadette. 

36:  5. — the  sentiment  of  pity.  See  The  Child  in  the 
House,  especially  55:  ^,  and  Marius  the  Epicurean,  Ch. 
I.,  XVIII.       ^    ' 

36:  5. — Meinhold  (i 797-1851)  was  a  Pomeranian  pastor 
who  wrote  several  novels,  and  finally  became  a  Catholic. 
He  is  not  by  any  means  well  known,  and  such  mention  of 
him  as  is  made  generally  refers  to  his  method  of  handling 
historical  material  in  fiction,  rather  than  to  his  mastery 
of  the  sentiment  of  pity  or  romance.  Pater  seems  to 
have  been  a  good  deal  impressed  by  his  work,  for  he  speaks 
of  him  again  in  the  Postscript  to  Appreciations  (p.  245), 
as  being  more  typical  of  German  romanticism  than  Tieck. 

36:  6. — Victor  Hugo  was  very  apt  to  come  to  Pater's 
mind  in  illustration.  See  43:7,  150:5,  Appreciations, 
260   (twice),   266,  etc. 

36:  8. — the  girl  who  rung  her  father's  knell.  I  do 
not  think  of  the  original. 

36:  8. — the  unborn  infant. 

"Last  Christmas-eve  we  talked  of  this, 
And  grey-haired  Wilfred  of  the  glen 
Held  that  the  unborn  infant  wrought 
About  its  mother's  heart,  and  brought 
Her  senses  back  again." 

The  Thorn,  St.  XIII.,  78I. 


p.  38,  I.  24J  NOTES  235 

36:  II. — the  instinctive  touches  of  children. 

"  Oh!  press  me  with  thy  little  hand; 
It  loosens  something  at  my  chest." 

Her  Eyes  Are  Wild,  St.   IV.,   8i2. 
36:  10. — the   sorrows   of   wild   creatures   even.      I    do 
not  remember  anything  apposite,  unless  it  be  The  White 
Doe  of  Rylstone,  368^. 

36:  12. — the  tales  of  passionate  regret  .  .  .  ruined 
farm  building.  As  at  the  end  of  the  First  Book  of  The 
Excursion  (4272). 

36:   13. — a  heap  of  stones. 

"  Beside  the  brook 
Appears  a  straggling  heap  of  unhewn  stones." 

Michael,   1312. 

36:  14. — a  deserted  sheepfold.  This  allusion  would 
seem  to  be  also  to  Alichael. 

36:  14. — that  gay  .  .  .  world.  This  may  refer 
to  tales  like  those  of  Margaret  or  Michael,  as  well  as  to 
tales  of  betrayal. 

36:  17. — "passionate  sorrow."  Cf.  "The  sorrow  of 
the  passion."     The  Prelude,  VII.      286I. 

36:  17.  —  carelessness  for  personal  beauty  even.  Cf. 
Her  Eyes  Are  Wild,  St.  VII. 

36:  20. — the  sailor.  The  quotation  is  from  The 
Brothers,  1252. 

36:  21. — the  wild  woman.  Cf.  Her  Eyes  Are  Wild, 
St.  VIII. 

36:  22. — incidents  like  .  .  .  the  sheepfold.  Both 
would  seem  to  be  from  Michael,  although  Luke  in  the 
poem  was  eighteen  years  old. 

37:  2. — our  best  modern  fiction.  The  reference  ought 
to  be  to  Thomas  Hardy.  I  am  not  sure  that  Under  the 
Greenwood  Tree  is  enough  to  give  ground  to  such  a  remark. 
Hardy's  later  work,  to  which  the  allusion  would  be  singu- 
larly apposite,  was  published  after  this  essay. 

37:  18. — a  chance  expression  .  .  .  new  connection. 
So  "  His  body  is  at  rest,  his  soul  in  heaven,"  in  The  Excur- 
sion, II  and  III,  pp.  455I,  443^. 

37:25.— "the  little  rock-like  pile."  r/i^Pr<?/W^,  VI  I.  285I. 

37:  31. — those  strange  reminiscences  and  forebodings. 
With  this  passage  read  Chap.  III.  of  Plato  and  Platonism, 
especially  pp.  60  ff. 

38:   24.— "the first     .     .     .     world."     The  Prelude,  XIL 


236  NOTES  [P.  39,1.  I  o 

39:   10.  —  that    old    dream    of    the  anima  mundi.     See 

the  note  on  31:29. 

39:   15. — the    sign   of   the  macrocosm  to  Faust.     Near 

the  beginning  of  the  play.  Pater  was  less  interested  in 
Faust  than  in  the  macrocosm  of  which  he  had  doubtless 
read  in  the  writings  of  Pico  della  Mirandola.  He  does 
not  mention  it  in  his  essay  in  The  Renaissance,  but  he 
does  give  a  quotation  which  expresses  the  relation  of 
which  the  sign  of  the  macrocosm  was  one  indication. 

39:  21. — the  narrow  glen  .  .  .  one  universal  spirit. 
The  Excursion,  Bk.  VI. 

40:  23. — ^the  graves  of  christened  children.  Perhaps 
still  suggested  by  the  Sixth  Book  of  The  Excursion,  49 2^. 

42:  5. — its  anticipator.  "  Listen  instead  to  the  lines 
which  perhaps  suggested  Wordsworth's:  The  Retreat,  by 
Henry  Vaughan,  one  of  the  so-called  Platonist  poets  of 
about  two  centuries  ago,  who  was  able  to  blend  those 
Pythagorean  doctrines  with  the  Christian  belief,  amid 
which,  indeed,  from  the  unsanctioned  dreams  of  Origen 
onwards,  those  doctrines  have  shown  themselves  not  other- 
wise than  at  home."     Plato  and  Platonism,  p.  64. 

42:  18. — if  men  must  have  lessons.  That  is,  if  they 
must  always  have  in  intellectual  form  the  ideas  that  are 
to  affect  them.  Marius  and  some  of  the  Imaginary  Por- 
traits and  the  essay  on  Lamb,  among  others,  show  how 
foreign  this  was  to  Pater's  own  way. 

43:  7. — Grandet,  Javert.  The  old  man  in  Balzac's 
Eugenie  Grandet  and  the  police  agent  in  Les  Miserables. 
Pater  was  more  familiar  with  Victor  Hugo  than  with 
Balzac,  who,  he  thought,  had  not  sufficient  admixture 
of  the  desire  of  beauty  in  his  composition. 

43:  15. — the  House  Beautiful.  A  year  or  two  after 
the  publication  of  this  essay.  Pater  published  one  on  Ro- 
manticism, which  was  called  Postscript  when  it  appeared 
in  Ap-Oreciations.  In  this  essay  he  speaks  of  "  that  House 
Beautiful,  which  the  creative  minds  of  all  generations — 
the  artists  and  those  who  have  treated  life  in  the  spirit 
of  art — are  always  building  together,  for  the  refreshment 
of  the  human  spirit." 

44:  5- — "antique  Rachel."  Dante,  Purgatorio  xxvii, 
105.     Rachel  is  the  type  of  the  contemplative  reason. 

44:  t6. — by  one  who  had  meditated.  Pater  here  called 
attention  in  a  note  to  "an  interesting  paper  by  Mr.  John 
Morley,  on  "  The  Death  of  Mr.  Mill,  Fortnightly  Review, 
June,  1873."     ^Ir,  Morley  is  the  author  of  the  Introduc- 


p.  48, 1.  28]  NOTES  237 

tion  to  the  Globe  Wordsworth,  to  which  references  in 
these  notes  are  made. 

45:  8. — with    appropriate    emotions.     Exact,    but    the 

words  seem  tarnished  with  careless  use. 

45:   10. — "on  the  great     ...     on  fear  and  sorrow." 

These  expressions  are  from  the  Preface  to  the  second 
edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  857I. 

45:  26. — "of  man  .  .  .  forms  and  powers."  The 
Prelude  VIII,  293. 

47. — The  Child  in  the  House.  This  essay  was  first  pub- 
lished in  Macmillan's  Magazine  for  August,  1878,  where 
it  had  the  sub-title  An  Imaginary  Portrait,  a  name  which 
Pater  subsequent!}'-  gave  to  a  collection  of  somewhat 
similar  studies,  published  in  1887.  As  to  just  how  imagi- 
nary this  portrait  was  there  may  be  some  doubt.  Pater 
certainly  had  some  idea  of  his  own  youth. 

47:  20. — tints  more  musically  blent.  Pater  wrote 
nothing  directly  upon  music,  but  the  subject  filled  a  con- 
siderable place  in  his  mind.  In  his  speculations  on  the 
relation  of  the  various  arts  to  each  other,  music  was  in- 
cluded, as  in  the  essay  on  The  School  of  Giorgione,  in  which 
he  makes  some  remarks  on  the  distinct  characteristics  of 
the  different  arts.  In  that  essay,  published  the  year  before 
this  fragment,  he  speaks  of  the  specific  charm  of  each  art, 
but  goes  on  to  note  that  in  spite  of  that  difference  each 
art  tended  to  pass  into  "  the  condition  of  some  other  art," 
and  he  further  remarked,  "  Thus  some  of  the  most  de- 
lightful music  seems  to  be  always  approaching  to  figure, 
to  pictorial  definition,"  and  having  instanced  some  other 
tendencies,  says  that  all  art  constantly  aspires  to  the  con- 
dition of  music,  because  all  art  is  constantly  aiming  at 
such  an  identification  of  form  and  matter  as  only  music 
attains.  And  in  Plato  and  Platonism  he  constantly  uses 
the  term  music  for  the  harmonious  ideal  of  art  in  general.' 
Pater,  then,  was  not  using  the  word  loosely  here,  but  with 
a  very  clear  thought  at  bottom.  He  uses  some  musical 
figures  later  in  the  sketch.     Cf.  152:  6,  208:  24  and  note. 

47:  24. — almost  thirty  years.  Florian  left  his  first 
home  at  the  age  of  twelve.  In  1878,  the  date  of  this  essay, 
Pater  was  forty-one  years  of  age. 

48:  28. — Watteau.  A  favorite  of  Pater's,  to  whom 
was  dedicated  the  imaginary  portrait  called  A  Prince  of 
Court  Painters.  The  name  of  Watteau,  however,  stands 
here  instead  of  that  of  his  contemporary,  Jean  Baptiste 
Pater,  whose  pictures  are  of  something  the  same  general 


238  NOTES  [P.  49,  1.  2 

character.  Pater  was  not  definitely  assured  of  his  own 
connection  with  the  French  painter,  but  esteemed  it  prob- 
able, and  probable  or  not  liked,  as  here,  to  think  of  it. 
Jean  Baptiste,  in  A  Prince  of  Court  Painters,  the  pupil 
of  Watteau,  was  presumably  Jean  Baptiste  Pater,  so  we 
may  suppose  that,  in  writing  that  Imaginary  Portrait, 
Pater  thought  of  the  diarist  as  some  distant  connection 
of  his  own. 

49:  2. — the  great  poplar  .  .  .  which  French  people 
love.     See  Denys  V Auxerrois ,  99:3. 

49:  22. — thrum.  A  mass  or  tuft  of  silk.  The  use  of 
the  singular  in  this  general  way  is  curious. 

51:  30.. — white  paper.  The  well-known  figure  by 
which  Locke  i^jscribes  the  state  of  the  mind  before  it 
has  arrived  at  sensation  and  reflection.  Essay  Concern- 
ing the  Human  Understanding.  Bk.  II,  Ch.  I.,  ^  2. 
Much  the  same  figure  is  used  by  Aristotle,  who  says 
ypapcjuarsiov,  which  means  a  wax  tablet  used  for  writing, 
whence  the  figure  later  in  the  same  line. 

51:  31. — "with  lead  in  the  rock  forever." 
"  O  that  my  words  were  now  written!     O  that  they  were 
printed  in  a  book! 

That  they  were  engraved  with  an  iron  pen  and  lead  in 
the  rock  forever." 

Job,  XIX.  23.  24. 
Verse  24  indicates  a  more  indelible  form  than  verse  23. 

55:  17. — the  Preacher.  Ecclesiastes,  although  I  have 
missed  the  passage  in  question.  There  are  several  which 
are  appropriate,  as  xi:  9. 

57:  7. — the  cry  on  the  stair.  The  incident  is  said  to 
be  autobiographic. 

59:  24. — In  later  years  .  .  .  vehicle  or  occasion. 
A  characteristic  of  Pater's  own  thinking.  Cf.  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Preface,  p.  i. 

60:  15. — the  world  .  .  .  with  us.  A  reminis- 
cence of  a  sonnet  by  Wordsworth,  beginning  with  almost 
the  same  words. 

60:  31. — violets  in  the  turf.     See  19:24  and  note. 

63*.  7- — the  resurrection  of  the  Just.     Luke  xiv.  14. 

63:  12. — Joshua's  Vision.  Joshua,  v,  13,  14.  "And 
it  came  to  pass  when  Joshua  was  by  Jerico,  that  he  lifted 
up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and  behold,  there  stood  a  man 
over  against  him  with  his  sword  drawn  in  his  hand:  and 
Joshua  went  trnto  him  and  said  unto  him,  Art  thou  for 


p.  69,  1.  7]  NOTES  239 

us  or  for  our  adversaries?  And  he  said,  Nay  but  as  cap- 
tain of  the  host  of  the  Lord  am  I  now  come." 

65:   16. — a  lively  hope,     i  Peter,  i,  3. 

65:  31. — the  wrestling  angel.     Gen.,  xxxii,  24. 

65:  31. — Jacob  ...  in  his  sleep.  Gen.,  xxviii, 
II. 

65:  32. — bells  and  pomegranates.  Exod.,  xxviii,  2>3>' 
"  Pomegranates  of  blue  and  of  purple,  and  of  scarlet 
*  *  *  round  about  the  hem  thereof  [t.  e.,  of  the  priest's 
garment]  and  bells  between  them  round  about."  A  good 
many  years  before  this.  Browning  had  brought  the  phrase 
into  notice  but  Pater  had  here  no  thought  of  the  pos- 
sible symbolism.  Note  his  addition  to  the  thought  of 
verse  35. 

66:  33. — mere  messengers  seemed  like  angels.  Angels 
usually  appear  in  this  commonplace  way  in  our  best 
record  of  them,  according  to  the  significance  of  the  Greek 
name.  Notice  the  account  of  Jacob's  wrestling  with  the 
angel:  it  begins,  "  And  Jacob  was  left  alone  and  there 
wrestled  a  man  with  him  imtil  the  breaking  of  the  day," 
nor  is  there  anything  to  show  that  in  appearance  the  man 
was  other  than  the  Bedouin  with  whom  he  wrestled. 

67:  9. — the  sacred  stuffs.  The  linen  curtains  (with 
loops  and  taches) ,  the  goat's-hair  curtains,  the  ram's-skin 
coverings,  the  door-hanging,  the  blue  and  purple  veil, 
are  all  described  in  detail  in  Exod.,  xxvi. 

69. — Euphuism.  Pater  here  uses  the  word  in  a  general 
sense,  that  will  become  clear  as  one  reads  the  chapter. 
Specifically,  the  word  applies  to  the  style  of  John  Lyly 
and  his  followers,  which,  in  its  details,  was  something 
very  different  from  anything  Flavian  had  in  mind. 

69:  I. — So  the  famous  story.  The  preceding  chapter 
in  Marius  consists  chiefly  of  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche 
from  the  Metamorphoses,  "  The  Golden  Book,"  of  Apu- 
leius. 

69:  5. — "Lord,  of  terrible  aspect."  The  quotation  is 
from  $  III-  of  Dante's  Vita  Nuova.  Love  appears  to 
Dante  in  a  cloud  of  fire,  saying  many  things  of  which 
Dante  understood  only  the  words  Ego  Dominus  Tuus. 

69:  7. — the  Eros  of  Praxiteles.  The  type  of  the  Eros  of 
Praxiteles  may  be  seen  in  many  imitations,  although 
there  are  no  absolute  copies.  "  It  seems  clear,  however, 
that  Praxiteles  presented  the  god  as  a  youth  of  almost 
mature  proportions,  but  with  a  boyish  deHcacy  and  grace 


240  NOTES  [P.  69,  1.  12 

in  his  pose  and  in  the  softer  modeling  of  the  body." 
Gardner:  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture,,  p.   363. 

69:  12. — entirely.  This  use  of  the  word  was  given 
currency  by  Ruskin,  and  became  in  time  almost  a  catch 
word  of  affectation.  It  seems  rather  to  offend  against 
some  of  Pater's  own  dicta  (p.  132:  28),  but  he  never  gave 
it  up.  In  12:  16,  we  have  the  adjective  used  in  the  same 
sense. 

70:  19. — saw  in  it  more.     See  note  on  11:  10. 

70:  25. — the  elder  youth.  Flavian  was  one  of  the 
older  scholars  at  the  school  where  Marius  now  was.  He 
was  "  appointed  to  help  the  younger  boy  in  his  studies," 
but  the  two  became  close  friends. 

70:  31. — through  which  alone.  The  only  way  of 
getting  through  that  wall  of  personality  of  the  Conclusion. 
20:  31. 

71 :  14. — bom  of  slaves.  Flavian  was  the  son  of  a 
freedman. 

71:  17. — While  .  .  .  classical  Latin.  The  two  ele- 
ments are  observable  to-day,  if  v/e  say  "  scientific  "  in- 
stead of  "  learned."  But  the  present  diffusion  of  read- 
ing makes  it  impossible  that  either  scientists  or  men  in 
the  street  should  ever  differ  very  far  from  the  norm  of 
literary  language. 

72: '2. — the  proletariate  of  speech.  The  colloquial 
element. 

72:  13. — all  that.  This  use  of  the  demonstrative  is 
rather  a  mannerism  of  Pater's;  it  all  would  seem  more 
usual  and  more  closely  connective.  Cf.  164:  21,  and 
143:   2,  155:   29,  203:  3. 

72:  16. — He  would  .  .  .  tarnished  images.  There 
is  a  good  deal  in  this  chapter  that  came  to  critical  ex- 
pression in  the  essay  on  Style.     Just  here  cf.  pp.  132:  25  ff, 

72:  19. — going  back      ...     of  each.     Cf.   i33"  2. 

72:  31. — To  be  forcibly  impressed.     Cf.  2:4. 

73:  4. — for  the  first  time.  Flavian,  as  the  son  of  an 
jill-used  slave,  felt  his  duties  to  society  very  slightly. 

73:  7. — sonantia,  etc.  The  translations  precede  the 
Latin. 

73:  25.  —  the  literary  conscience.  The  "  male  con- 
science "  of  129:  7 :  in  the  note  to  that  passage  is  a  refer- 
ence to  Plato  and  Platonism. 

75:  3. — the  Refrain.  So  had  the  time  in  which  Pater 
wrote;  at  least,  so  far  as  it  is  represented  in  the  revival 


p.  83, 1.  24]  NOTES  241 

of  old  French  forms  by  Austin  Dobson  and  Andrew  Lang, 
and  of  the  ballad  poetry  by  Swinburne  and  Rossetti. 

75*  23. — how  had  the  burden  .  .  .  since  then. 
Here,  as  in  some  other  places  in  Marias,  Pater  has  in 
mind  the  conditions  of  our  own  time,  or,  rather,  condi- 
tions which  we  imagine  peculiar  to  our  own  time.  "  That 
age  and  our  own,"  lie  wrote,  in  Chap.  XVI,  "  have  much 
in  common,  many  difficulties  and  hopes.  Let  the  reader 
pardon  me,  if  here  and  there  I  seem  to  be  passing  from 
Marius  to  his  modern  representatives — from  Rome  to 
Paris  or  London."  The  same  complaint  is  heard  to-day 
that  Pater  puts  in  the  mouth  of  the  young  poet  seventeen 
centuries  ago — nearer  to  Homer  than  we  are  to  him. 
This  particular  exclamation  may  be  imagined  to  be  some- 
what ironic;  we  think  of  beginners,  but  it  is  not  very 
probable  that  they  thought  of  themselves  as  such. 

76:  3. — art  casuistries.  Pater  uses  the  expression  for 
such  aesthetic  arguments  as,  for  example,  the  Laocoon. 
"A  true  appreciation  of  these  things,"  he  writes,  in  Tlu 
School  of  Giorgione,  after  mention  of  Lessing,  is  "possible 
only  in  the  light  of  a  whole  system  of  such  art  casuistries." 

76:   19. — Homer  had. said.      In   the   Iliad,  I,  432,  433, 

437. 

78:  24. — thus  rather  than  thus.  We  shall  meet  the 
idea  again,  more  at  large,  in  the  essay  on  Style,  beginning 
on  p.    126. 

78:  30. — to  know  when  oneself  is  interested.  The 
idea  that  occurs  over  and  over  again. 

79:  II. — the  magnificent  exordium  of  Lucretius.  The 
first  forty-four  lines  of  De  Natura  Rerttni. 

79:  24. — to  his  later  euphuistic  kinsmen.  Pater  may 
have  in  mind  the  mythological  similies  of  John  Lyly,  and 
of  Guevara  before  him,  or  he  may  have  had  a  more  general 
meaning. 

80:  10. — the  Ship  of  Isis.  Isis,  as  the  "  new  rival  "  of 
Venus,  had  begun  her  career  at  Rome  even  in  Ref)ub- 
lican  times. 

80:  21. — their  chorus.  To-morrow,  let  him  love  who 
has  never  loved  before,  and  who  has  loved,  let  him  to- 
morrow love. 

83:  24. — the  Siren  Ligeia.  The  voyage  of  ^neas  had 
localized  the  sirens  in  Italy;  the  tomb  of  Parthenope  was 
said  to  be  near  Naples.  Readers  of  Comus  who  remember 
so  much,  will  remember  that  Milton  thought  of  Ligeia  as 
having  a  golden  comb,  like  a  modern  mermaid  or  lorelei. 


242  NOTES  [P.  84, 1.31 

84:  31. — the  terrible  new  disease.  The  plague  brought 
to  Italy  in  the  army  of  Lucius  Verus.  "  For  the  fantas- 
tical colleague  of  the  philosophic  emperor,  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  returning  in  triumph  from  the  East,  had  brought  in 
his  train,  among  the  enemies  of  Rome,  one  by  no  means 
a  captive."  Flavian  died,  and  Marius,  much  moved  at 
his  death,  turned  to  philosophy,  to  "  those  writers  chiefly 
who  had  made  it  their  business  to  know  what  might  be 
thought  concerning  that  strange,  enigmatic,  personal 
essence  which  had  seemed  to  go  out  altogether,  along  with 
the  funeral  pyres."  This  was  the  real  beginning  of  that 
course  of  thought  and  life  which  makes  up  the  novel.  A 
summary  of  it  is  ofifered  in  the  introduction  by  which  the 
reader  can,  without  much  difficulty,  appreciate  the  next 
extract,  which  describes  one  of  the  later  moments. 

85 :  4. — the  Zeus  of  Olympia.  The  great  work  in  gold 
and  ivory  of  Pheidias.  Although  the  type  was  universally 
recognized  and  reproduced  (Gardner:  Hatidhook  of  Greek 
Sculpture,  p.  259),  no  copy  exists,  and  knowledge  of  the 
statue  must  be  drawn  from  coins  and  descriptions. 

85:  4. — the  series  of  frescoes.  By  Giotto.  There  are 
very  many  frescoes  in  the  church  of  St.  Francis  at  Assisi, 
by  many  painters.  "It  is  no  exaggeration,"  says  Sy- 
monds  {Renaissance  in  Italy,  III,  191),  "to  say  that 
Giotto  and  his  scholars,  within  the  space  of  little  more 
than  half  a  century,  painted  out  upon  the  walls  of  the 
churches  and  palaces  of  Italy,  every  great  conception  of 
the  Middle  Ages."  And,  a  page  or  two  later,  "  To  give 
an  account  of  the  frescoes  of  these  painters  would  be  to 
describe  how  the  religious,  social  and  philosophical  con- 
ceptions of  the  fourteenth  century  found  complete  ex- 
pression in  form  and  color." 

86:  IT. — Cornelius.  The  young  knight  whom  Marius 
had  fallen  in  with  on  his  first  journey  to  Rome.  Introd., 
p.  xliv. 

86:  13. — the  Cecilian  Villa.  The  house  of  Cecilia,  a 
"  wealthy  Roman  matron,  left  early  a  widow  a  few  years 
before,  by  Cecilius,  '  Confessor  and  Saint.'  " 

86:   15. — the  clear  light  of  winter  morning.    Cf.  61:3. 

87:  4. — an  earlier  rule  .  .  .  relaxed.  Otherwise 
Marius  could  not  have  been  present,  for  he  was  not  a 
Christian, 

87:  II. — The  Roman  ingenuus.  Or  young  man  of 
good  birth. 

87:  33. — the      flaming     rampart      of      the      world." 


p.  93, 1.1 8]  NOTES  243 

"  Flammantla  moenia  mundi,"  an  expression  which  occurs 
several  times  in  earlier  chapters:  it  came  to  Marius  in 
his  study  of  Aristippus  of  Cyrene. 

88:  24. — Christe  Eleison!     Christ  have  mercy  upon  us. 

88:  29. — Kyrie  Eleison!     Lord  have  mercy  upon  us. 

89:  8. — Cum  .  .  .  dicatur.  It  is  to  be  said  with 
great  feeling  and  contrition. 

89:  21. — Benedixisti  .  .  .  meis.  Lord  thou  hast 
blessed  thy  land.  Ps.  Ixxxv,  i.  The  Lord  said  unto  my 
Lord,  Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand.     Ps.  ex.  i. 

89:  29. — in  the  old  pagan  worship.  The  first  chapter 
in  the  book  is  on  The  Religion  of  Numa,  and  Pater  remarks 
especially  that  the  Roman  worshipers  "  had  never  been 
challenged  by  those  prayers  and  ceremonies  to  any  pon- 
derings  on  the  divine  nature:  they  conceived  them,  rather, 
to  be  the  appointed  means  of  setting  such  troublesome 
moments  at  rest.  .  .  .  But  in  the  young  Marius  the 
very  absence  from  those  venerable  usages  of  all  definite 
history  and  dogmatic  interpretation  had  already  awakened 
nnuch  speculative  activity." 

90:  26. — Astiterunt  reges.  The  kings  of  the  earth  have 
banded  together  against  thy  holy  child,  Jesus.  Now,  O 
Lord,  give  to  thy  servants  to  speak  thy  word  and  to  make 
the  sign  in  the  name  of  thy  holy  child,  Jefeus. 

91:  18.— sicut  .  .  .  vestimenti.  As  oil  on  the 
head  descending  upon  the  vestment. 

91 :  26. — lavabo.  The  ceremony  of  washing  the  hands 
before  the  administration  of  the  Eucharist;  so  called,  as 
in  some  other  cases  {dirge;  and  Tantmn  ergo,  216:9), 
from  the  first  words  of  the  text  recited  at  the  time.  La- 
vabo me  as  manus  in  innoceniia;  I  will  wash  my  hands  in 
innocency.     Ps.  xxvi,  6. 

91:  31. — rhapsodos.  A  professional  reciter  of  poetry. 
The  word  is  Greek,  but  such  reciters  will  be  found  among 
many  other  peoples  who  have  no  printing. 

93. — Sursum  .  .  .  Nostro.  Lift  up  your  hearts. 
We  hold  them  up  to  the  Lord.  Let  us  give  thanks  to  the 
Lord  our  God. 

93:  18. — in  the  way  .  .  ,  of  imitation.  In  the  way 
of  "  accommodation  of  the  world  as  it  is  to  the  divine 
pattern  of  the  Logos  the  eternal  reason,  over  against  it." 
although  Marius  thought  that  the  philosophy  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  was  really  inadequate  to  its  method  and  its  aim. 

93:  18. — Adoremus  .  .  .  mundum.  We  adore  thee 
O  Christ,  since  by  thy  cross  thou  hast  redeemed  the  world. 


244  NOTES  [P.  94,  1.  It 

94:  II. — It  was  the  image  .  .  .  worship.  Pater's 
note  here  refers  to  Ps.  xxii,  22-31. 

95:  9. — Perducat  .  .  .  aeternam!  May  he  lead  you 
unto  eternal  lif??. 

95:  21. — Ite!  Missa  est!  Go  forth!  It  is  dismisted! 
The  word  Alass  is  derived  from  Missa. 

96:  19. — a  denizen  of  old  Greece.  The  figure  of  Denya 
is  that  of  the  Greek  wine  god  Dionysus — his  name  is  the 
French  development  of  the  Greek  name — and  in  this  re- 
spect the  story  is  comparable  to  that  of  Apollo  in  Picardy. 
They  are  fantasias  on  the  theme  The  Gods  in  Exile,  which 
Pater  borrowed  from  Heine.  On  p.  102,  1.  2c,  he  gives 
the  motive  in  a  single  sentence.  To  get  at  Pater's  con- 
ception of  Dionysus,  not  so  definitely  limited  as  the  notion 
one  would  get  fn^m  a  classical  dictionary,  but  as  actually 
existing  in  his  mind  about  this  time,  one  should  read  the 
essay  on  the  subject  in  Greek  Studies. 

96:  26. — specific.  Not  individual,  but  belonging  to 
the  same  minor  class. 

97:  9. — Auxerre,  Sens,  Troyes.  The  three  towns  He 
about  one  hundred  miles  to  the  southeast  of  Paris,  in  the 
old  province  of  Champagne. 

97:  21. — the  pointed  style.  Or  Gothic  of  which  the 
Cathedral  of  Amiens,  described  in  a  later  selection,  is  one 
of  the  best  examples. 

97:  21. — Flamboyant.  The  adjectives  in  1:  25  are  ap- 
plicable to  flamboyant  architecture,  in  which  the  tendency 
was  for  the  ornament  to  hide  the  structure. 

98:  23. — the  hard  "early  English"  of  Canterbury.  A 
good  account  of  the  Cathedral  at  Canterbury  will  be  found 
in  Mrs.  Van  Rensselaer's  English  Cathedrals. 

99:  17. — to  tarry  at  each.  Pater  used  often  to  go 
across  the  channel  for  little  tours  in  France. 

100:  20. — Jacques  Bonhomme.  The  generic  name  foi 
the  French  peasant. 

loi :   17. — potager.     Vegetable  garden. 

102:  30. — Towards  .  .  .  thirteenth  century.  The 
period  was  of  great  interest  to  Pater,  as  we  have  seen 
already,  5:  14,  note.  "  Here  and  there,"  he  writes,  in 
The  Renaissance,  p.  2,  "  under  rare  and  happy  conditions, 
in  Pointed  architecture,  in  the  doctrines  of  romantic  love, 
in  the  poetry  of  Provence,  the  rude  strength  of  the  Middle 
Age  turns  to  sweetness;  and  the  taste  for  sweetness  gen- 
erated there  becomes  the  seed  of  the  classical  revival 
in  It,  prompting  it  constantly  to  seek  after  the  springs 


p.  117,  1.  19]  NOTES  245 

of  sweetness  in  the  Hellenic  world.  And,  coming  after 
a  long  period  in  which  this  instinct  had  been  crushed, 
that  true  '  dark  age  '  in  which  so  many  sources  of  intel- 
lectual and  imaginative  enjoyment  had  actually  dis- 
appeared, this  outbreak  is  rightly  called  a  Renaissance, 
a  revival." 

103:  10. — Tonnerre.  About  twenty  miles  east  of 
Auxerre. 

103:   18. — that  political  movement.     Cf.  204:4-10. 

105:  4. — the  singular  being.  This  introduction  of  the 
chief  figure  in  the  tale  almost  as  though  he  were  an  al- 
read3'-mentioned  character  may  be  compared  with  the 
first  mention  of  Duke  Carl  of  Rosenmold,  Gaston  de 
Latour  (pp.  2,  7)  and  Emerald  Uthwart.  The  curious 
assumption  that  the  reader  knows  already  what  it  is  all 
about,  is  very  like  Pater's  habitual  avoidance  of  any 
statement  of  action  which  is  not  absolutely  necessary. 

106:  15. — a  beautiful  country  girl.  The  story  of  Se- 
mele;  '"  dead  by  lightning-stroke  as  it  seemed,"  as  he 
says,  a  line  or  so  below. 

107:  10. — the  women.  It  will  be  remembered  that  it 
was  women  especially  who  were  fascinated  by  the  cult 
of  Dionysus.  "  Himself  a  woman-like  god,"  says  Pater, 
in  his  essay  on  The  Bacchanals  of  Euripides,  "  it  was  on 
women  and  feminine  souls  that  his  power  mainly  fell." 

107:  31. — of  insolence.  "  Remember  that  the  word 
VEOTi]^,  youth,  came  to  mean  rashness,  insolence!"  Plato 
and  Platonism,  p.   9. 

108:  35. — liberation  of  the  commune.  As  often  al- 
luded to,  e.g.,  103  :  1 8  and  note. 

109:  31. — a  veritable  wolf.  A  wolf  came  to  be  the 
sacrifice  to  Dionysus. 

no:  6. — the  owl.  Did  he  abhor  it  as  the  type  of  the 
"  self-reverence,   self-knowledge,   self-control  "   of  Pallas? 

112:  22. — the  lady  Ariadne.  Ariadne,  deserted  by  The- 
seus in  the  isle  of  Naxos,  was  comforted  by  Dionysus. 

112:  29. — two  natures.  Cf.  the  last  few  pages  of 
Pater's  essay  on  Dionysus. 

ti3:  26. — a  wine-god  who  had  been  in  hell.  Greek 
myth  in  its  later  ages  rather  confounded  Dionysus  with 
Persephone  {Greek  Studies,  p.  40),  who,  according  to  the 
well-known  story,  spent  half  the  year  in  Hades. 

115:   I. — King  Louis  the  Saint.     A  favorite  with  Pater. 

117:   19. — Like  the  wine-god.     Cf.  Greek  Studies,  p.  ro. 


246  NOTES  [P.  118,1.13 

118:  13. — Apollo.  The  organ,  as  a  reed  instrument, 
is  a  development  of  the  pipes  originally  made  by  the 
great  god  Pan  of  the  reeds  by  the  river.  Marsyas  was 
a  satyr  who  had  ventured  to  compete  with  Apollo,  "  the 
lord  of  strings,"  and  who  w^as  flayed  alive  by  him.  Mar- 
syas had  not  played  on  the  pan-pipes,  however;  he  had 
played  upon  the  flute,  w^hich  he  found  when  Pallas  threw 
it  away  in  disgust,  because  people  laughed  at  her  funny 
face  when  she  played  upon  it.  This  picture  must  have 
been  a  sort  of  w^arning. 

121:  27. — The  scul  of  Denys  was  already  at  rest.  The 
motive  of  the  unfortunate,  torn  to  pieces  by  infuriated 
Bacchanals,  is  most  familiar  to  us  in  the  story  of  Pentheus, 
or  (rather  nearer  in  this  case  by  the  addition  of  the  music) 
of  Orpheus.  But  Pater,  at  the  end  of  his  essay  on  Diony- 
sus, turns  to  the  "  special  development  in  the  Orphic 
literature  and  mysteries  "  which  give  "  a  special  and 
esoteric  version  "  of  the  legend  of  the  god,  wherein,  as 
here,  it  is  Dionysus  himself  who  is  destroyed. 

122:  7. — So  .  .  .  itself.  The  precise  significance 
of  this  story  is  not  easy  to  discover  and  state,  nor  is  it 
wholly  necessary  to  do  so.  If  we  desire,  however,  to  find 
(as  Pater  himself  liked  to  find  in  Lycidas)  "  amid  the 
flowers,  the  allusions,  the  mixed  perspectives  .  .  .  the 
thought,"  we  shall  note  one  or  two  points.  In  the  essay 
on  Dionysus,  published  about  ten  years  before  this 
imaginary  portrait,  we  have  first  the  conception  of  the 
religion  of  Dionysus,  as  "  a  monument  of  the  ways  and 
thoughts  of  people  whose  days  go  beside  the  wine-press 
and  under  the  green  and  purple  shadows,  and  whose 
material  happiness  depends  on  the  crop  of  grapes,"  with 
further  developments,  as  the  cult  cp.me  to  the  cities, 
and  finally  to  a  place  in  literature.  This  representative 
conception,  we  may  assume,  Pater  had  not  infrequently 
in  mind  when  he  thought  of  Greece,  which  he  never 
visited,  and,  with  his  habit  of  connecting  the  ideas  of 
one  period  with  the  life  of  another  (177:  i;  cf.  The  Re- 
naissance, 2),  it  w^as  natural  that  it  should  mix  itself  also 
with  the  thought  of  his  favorite  part  of  France,  famous 
as  Greece  had  been  for  its  vineyards.  But  in  transferring 
the  legend  into  the  Middle  Ages,  there  were  some  new 
elements  of  which  he  could  not  fail  to  take  account, 
namely,  the  medieval  city  life  mingled  in  these  towns 
of  Champagne  with  the  life  of  the  vineyard.  The  purple 
and   gray    city — so   he   thinks   of  Auxerre — that   always 


p.  124, 1.  io|  NOTES  247 

needed  a  little  more  sunlight;  it  gives  a  richer  and  a 
darker  side  to  the  legend,  which  harmonizes  with  the 
moral  change  which  had  been  wrought  among  the  vine- 
yard people,  who  were  no  longer  the  blithe  people  of 
sunny  Greece.  The  vine  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  some- 
thing very  different  from  the  vine  in  antiquity.  So  the 
story  changes;  it  becomes  richer  in  color,  but  its  darker 
elements  are  more  strongly  brought  out,  and,  indeed,  pre- 
dominate. Pater  was  working  with  old  material,  accord- 
ing to  his  custom,  but  he  was  clearly  guided  by  his  as- 
surance of  the  impossibility  of  form  being  anything  else 
than  what  the  real  circumstance  might  create.  How 
far  he  has  really  divined  the  essential  character  of  the 
wine  god  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  is  for  deeper  students  of 
history  to  judge.  The  student  of  literature  who  regards 
the  story  as  a  piece  of  translation  will  rate  it  highly. 
Hawthorne  gave  the  classic  mythology  a  romantic  form 
and  so  did  William  Morris,  but  neither  can  be  said  to 
be  so  successful  in  divining  both  the  classic  and  the  ro- 
mantic spirit. 

123:  2. — differentiation.  The  necessary  process  in  per- 
ceiving the  unique  characteristic.  Cf.  3:12,  22:  11-13, 
and  elsewhere. 

123:  7. — poetry.  In  its  formal  character  as  indicated 
by  the  use  of  verse  later  in  this  sentence  and  in  the 
next. 

123:   15. — a  certain  means  or  faculty.     Cf.  2:  10. 

123:  17. — make  the  most  of  things.     Cf.  22:3-5. 

123:  17. — Critical  efforts  ...  of  things.  The  essay 
on  The  School  of  Giorgione,  which  was  added  to  the  third 
edition  of  The  Renaissance,  gives  an  idea  of  how  far  Pater 
thought  this  limitation  could  usefully  be  carried.  "  But 
although  each  art,"  he  writes,  "  has  thus  its  own  specific 
charm,  while  a  just  apprehension  of  the  ultimate  differ- 
ences of  the  arts  is  the  beginning  of  cesthetic  criticism; 
yet  it  is  noticeable  that,  in  its  special  mode  of  handling 
its  given  material,  each  art  may  be  observed  to  pass  into 
the  condition  of  some  other  art,  by  what  German  critics 
term  an  Andersstrehen — a  partial  alienation  from  its  own 
limitations,  by  which  the  arts  are  able,  not  indeed  to 
supply  the  place  of  each  other,  but  reciprocally  to  lend 
each  other  new  forces."     The  Renaissance,  p.  139. 

123:   23. — while.     In  the  temporal  meaning,  so  long  as. 

124:  10. — the  business  ...  to  estimate.  It  being 
always  the  business  of  criticism  to  estimate. 


248  NOTES  [P.  124, 1.  22 

124:  22. — the  characteristic  ...  his  age.  The  in- 
tellectual critical  spirit. 

124:  29. — vitiated  .  .  .  scanning  line.  Perhaps 
not  quite  unconsciously.  In  the  preface  to  The  Rival 
Ladies,  Dry  den  speaks  of  "  that  kind  of  writing  which 
we  call  blank  verse,  but  the  French  more  properly,  prose 
mesure:  into  which  the  English  tongue  so  naturally  slides 
that  in  writing  prose  it  is  hardly  to  be  avoided."  What 
Dryden  had  in  mind  was  the  sort  of  iambic  rhythm  which 
occurs  not  infrequently  in  his  earlier  prose,  sometimes 
for  eight,  ten  or  twelve  syllables  at  a  time.  It  is  not  very 
often  that  such  snatches  constitute  a  true  line.  We  have 
such  combinations  as 
"  Adorn  the  borders  of  their  plays." 

Preface  to  The  Tempest. 
"  Or  in  the  general  notion  of  a  play." 

Preface  to  The  Maiden  Queen. 
"  The  refuge  of  those  hearts  which  others  have  despised." 
Preface  to  The  Indian  Empress. 

It  might  be  remarked  that  Pater  has  scanning  lines,  too; 
his  are  generally  hexameters,  e.  g.,  13:  26-29. 

124:  30. — Setting  up  correctness.  He  was  modest 
about  it,  however,  as  in  the  Preface  to  Tyrannic  Love, 
where  he  says  he  cannot  pretend  that  anything  of  his 
is  really  correct. 

124:  33. — an  imperfect  .  .  .  pronoun.  Dryden 
generally  uses  the  relative  immediately  after  a  noun  as 
antecedent;  with  a  clause  as  antecedent;  after  a  period, 
colon  or  semi-colon.  It  is  perhaps  this  latter  use  that 
Pater  has  in  mind.  "  With  this  advantage  of  ease  to 
you  in  your  poetry,  that  you  have  fortune  here  at  your 
command;  with  which  wisdom  does  often  unsuccessfully 
struggle  in  this  world."     Preface  to  The  Rival  Ladies. 

125:  8. — The  true  .  .  .  metrical  beauty.  So  in 
the  preface  of  1800.  Works  of  Wordsworth,  Globe 
edition,  p.  853,  note. 

125  :  12. — and  .  .  .  unimaginative  writing.  The 
meaning  will  be  plainer  if  we  insert  parentheses  to  read, 
"  And  for  him  the  opposition  came  to  be  (between  verse 
and  prose,  of  course  but,  as  essential  dichotomy  in  this 
matter,)  between  imaginative  and  unimaginative  writing 
etc." 

125:  15. — De  Quincey's  distinction.  Drawn  in  his 
essay   on    Pope. 


P  128,1.  21]  NOTES  249 

125:  20. — Dismissing  then.  The  preceding  pages  were 
necessary  in  order  to  deal  with  poetry  and  prose  together. 

126:  3. — Pascal.  A  lecture  on  Pascal  was  the  last 
thing  published  by  Pater;  it  is  in  the  Contemporary 
Review,  for  December,  1894.  It  is  not  quite  satisfactory 
in  form — it  was  republished  after  his  death  in  Miscel- 
laneous Studies — and  we  cannot  be  sure  that  Pater  would 
not  have  revised  it,  although  he  generally  made  very 
slight  changes  in  collecting  his  published  articles.  It 
gives,  although  not  very  definitely,  something  of  the 
idea  that  we  get  from  this  sentence.  The  impression 
is  conveyed  mere  by  quotation  than  is  common  with 
Pater,  but  there  are  some  statements  that  might  be 
quoted.  For  instance  after  a  sentence  by  Pascal,  he 
says,  "It  is  not  thought  by  which  that  excels,  but  the 
convincing  force  of  imagination  which  sublimates  its  very 
triteness." 

126:  16. — where  the  imagination  ...  an  in- 
truder. The  "  scientific  imagination  "  Pater  evidently 
regards  as  something  very  different  from  the  imagination 
he  is  now  considering.  We  must  take  the  term  in  rather 
a  popular  sense. 

127:  II.  —  fine  art.  We  have  here  one  of  the  dis- 
tinctions which  determine  the  idea  of  the  essay.  Art 
which  has  the  author's  own  sense  of  fact  in  it  is  fine  art 
as  opposed  to  serviceable  art ;  in  proportion  as  the  present- 
ment of  this  sense  of  fact  is  true  it  is  good  art;  and  ac- 
cording to  the  quality  of  the  matter  it  is  great  art  (152 :  15). 

127:  18. — fineness  of  truth.     Cf.  22:  12. 

128:  13. — that  imaginative  prose  .  .  .  form  of 
literature.  Prose,  however,  is  practically  always  a  later 
development  than  poetry.  In  the  free  beginnings  of  any 
literature  poetry  comes  first,  as  with  the  Greeks,  the 
Persians,  the  Icelanders.  Even  where  there  is  the  in- 
fluence of  some  other  literature  to  be  considered  prose 
generally  comes  later.  It  is  not  improbable  then  that 
one  of  the  causes  of  the  predominance  of  prose  in  the 
last  century  is  that  in  all  the  literatures  of  Europe, 
definitely  formed  prose  begins  later  than   poetry. 

128:  21. — lawless  verse.  Probably  verse  unrestrained 
by  the  rigidity  of  the  eighteenth  century  canon.  Or  it 
may  be  that  Pater  had  in  mind  such  free  rhythms  as 
those  of  Coleridge  in  Christabel,  of  Heine  in  the  Nord 
See,  and  of  Mr.  Henley,  for  instance,  in  England,  the 
SymboHsts  in   France,   and  a  number  of  experimenters 


250  NOTES  [P.  129, 1.  2 

in  Germany.  He  may  even  have  thought  of  Walt  Whit- 
man, who  was  well  known  by  a  number  of  Pater's  friends, 
although  Pater  himself  does  not  allude  to  him. 

129:  2. — the  rhythm.  A  good  consideration  of  prose 
rhythm  is  something  much  needed  in  critical  literature. 
Alany  authors  speak  of  prose  rhythm,  but  such  state- 
ments as  will  enable  one  to  recognize  it  and  know  it  well 
are  far  to  seek.  What  may  be  born  in  mind — it  will 
serve  as  a  good  foundation — is  the  fact  that  the  rhythm 
of  prose  is  not  poetical  rhythm.  This  fact  Aristotle 
pointed  out  early  in  the  history  of  criticism  and  it  has 
been  often  forgotten  and  restated.  As  Pater  himself 
indicates  (124:30),  it  is  not  scanning  lines  that  makes 
rhythmical  prose.  For  Cicero's  own  opinion  on  such 
poetic  rhythm  in  prose  see  the  Orator,  XLIV.  For 
Newman's  rhythm,  consult  Gates'  Selections,  xxxv. 

129:  4. — every  syllable.  Here  Pater  inserted  the  fol- 
lowing note:  Mr.  Saintsbury,  in  his  Specimens  of  English 
Prose,  from  Malory  to  Macatilay,  has  succeeded  in  tracing, 
through  successive  English  prose  writers,  the  tradition 
of  that  severer  beauty  in  them,  of  which  this  admirable 
scholar  of  our  literature  is  known  to  be  a  lover.  English 
Prose,  from  Mandeville  to  Thackeray,  more  recently 
"  chosen  and  edited  "  by  a  younger  scholar,  Mr.  Arthur 
Galton,  of  New  College,  Oxford,  a  lover  of  our  literature 
at  once  enthusiastic  and  discreet,  aims  at  a  more  various 
illustration  of  the  eloquent  powers  of  English  prose, 
and  is  a  delightful  companion. 

129:  7. — the  male  conscience.  Pater  is  old-fashioned 
here,  but  we  can  get  his  meaning  even  if  we  disagree 
with  his  ideas  on  education.  We  should  compare  this 
passage  with  one  in  Plato  and  Platonism,  p.  253. 

130:  7. — to  efface  the  distinctions.  Pater  here  touches 
one  of  the  points  where  there  seems  to  be  a  real  danger 
to  the  English — or  perhaps  only  to  the  American — 
language.  We  are  apt  to  use  indiscriminately  words 
which  come  pretty  near  the  meaning  we  have  in  mind, 
and  so  to  lose  the  possibility  of  exact  expression.  It  is 
a  common  vulgarism  to  use  the  word  share  as  if  it  meant 
precisely  the  same  thing  as  part,  to  use  to  claim,  as  if  it 
meant  precisely  the  same  thing  as  to  say.  Suppose  that 
usage  continues  so  far  that  the  words  claim  and  share 
actually  do  have  such  meanings,  how  shall  we  convey 
the  particular  idea  for  which  the  words  are  now  rightly 


p.  135,  1.9]  NOTES  251 

used?  We  shall  have  practically  lost  those  words  and 
language  will  be  by  so  much  the  poorer. 

130:  15. —  many  a  gipsy  phrase.  An  attractive  ex- 
pression  that   comes   from   no   one   knows   where. 

130:  23.  —  the  effect  of  a  challenge.  So  with  Words- 
worth, 27:  25. 

131:  15. — -"Plato  for  instance.  The  classical  student 
will  be  interested  in  comparing  with  the  original  Pater's 
own  translations  in  Plato  and  Plaionism. 

131:  24. — systematic  reading  of  a  dictionary.  As 
Lord  Chatham  and  Theophile  Gautier  (a  whimsical 
couple)    are  said  to  have  done. 

132:  7. — the  language  that  was  his.  Wordsworth's 
break  with  "  poetic  diction  "  need  hardly  be  mentioned. 
His  own  statement  of  his  position  may  be  found  in  the 
preface  to  the  second  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads. 
For  one  or  two  allusions  to  the   subject,  see  25:  28,  35:  5 

132:  29. — ascertain,  communicate,  discover.  The  ob- 
solete uses  of  ascertain,  of  which  there  are  many,  have,  as 
a  rule,  the  idea  of  sureness  or  certainty  which  in  the  present 
use  is  rather  neglected.  Still,  even  at  present,  one  would 
hardly  use  the  word  for  the  finding  out  of  something  which 
was  not  to  some  degree  already  known.  The  other  words 
are  currently  used  for  tell  and  find:  for  comnnmicate,  cf. 

7:9- 

133-  I- — Its.  Its  occurs  rarely  in  Shakespeare,  most 
of  the  cases  being  in  later  plays.  The  common  form 
is  his,  or  sometimes  her,  and  now  and  then  occurs  it. 

134:  13. — a  religious  "retreat."  That  is,  they  are 
opportunities  where  there  is  no  interruption  in  the  per- 
formance of  duties  necessary  to  one's  higher  life. 

135 '  8. — Flaubert.  Pater  has  more  to  say  of  him  later. 
'  135:  9- — Stendhal.  Of  Stendhal  Pater  had  already 
had  something  to  say  in  the  Postscript  to  Appreciations, 
so  far  as  concerned  his  romanticism.  As  a  rule,  Stendhal, 
or  Henri  Beyle,  as  his  real  name  was,  has  been  more  usu- 
ally thought  of  as  one  of  the  forerunners  of  the  Realistic 
movement  in  France,  of  the  psychological  novel.  M.  Paul 
Bourget,  who  writes  of  Stendhal  in  his  Psychologic  Con- 
temporaine  (i,  254),  says,  "  We  speak  easily  just  now  of 
Balzac  and  Stendhal  as  we  should  speak  of  Hugo  and 
Lamartine."  Beyle  himself  had  said — he  died  in  1S42 — 
"  I  shall  be  understood  about  1880."  And  M.  Bourget, 
writing  in  1882,  says  that  the  phrase  which  seemed  inso- 
lent had  become  a  prophecy,  but  goes  on,  "  Who  can  say 


252  NOTES  [F.  135,  I.  27 

that  in  forty  years  this  same  Stendhal  and  those  who 
admire  him  will  not  be  engulfed  in  deep  forgetfulness  by 
a  new  generation,  which  will  taste  life  with  new  savors"? 
Probably  some  such  thing  will  take  place.  Stendhal  is 
interesting,  without  doubt,  but  he  was  not  man  enough 
to  make  the  large  place  in  the  mind  that  keeps  one  im- 
mortal.     Nor  was  Flaubert  either,  in  all  probability. 

135:  27. — the  removal  of  surplusage.  It  would  seem 
that  Pater's  remarks  would  apply  to  a  severely  classic 
style  (perhaps  like  that  of  Landor) ,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
difference  allowed  in  the  determination  of  just  what  was 
surplusage  and  what  necessity.     See  149:  24. 

136:  12. — the  physical  elements.  An  example  of 
what  Pater  has  in  mind  is  offered  by  a  passage  from 
Goldsmith,  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  Chap.  XXXI.,  "  '  Is  it 
possible,  sir,'  interrupted  his  nephew,  '  that  my  uncle 
should  object  that  as  a  crime,  which  his  repeated  instruc- 
tions alone  could  have  persuaded  me  to  avoid?  '  "  Prof. 
Jordan,  in  her  edition,  remarks:  ''This  is  a  thoroughly 
un-English  expression."  The  use  is  certainly  not  com- 
mon now;  but  it  is  archaic  rather  than  un-English.  The 
meaning  is  quite  clear  when  we  keep  in  mind  the  full 
significance  of  the  elements  of  the  word   object. 

137:  21. — wrote  a  book.  Prolegomena  Logica:  An  In- 
quiry into  the  Psychological  Character  of  Logical  Processes. 
By  Henry  Longueville  Mansel.  Oxford  and  London, 
1851. 

138:  5. — its  logic.  The  word  is  here  used,  not  with 
any  argumentative  sense,  but  with  the  meaning  of  some 
consistent  system  necessitated  by  the  nature  of  the  things 
in  question. 

138:  32. — almost  visual  image.  Oscar  Wilde  (Inten- 
tions, 112),  noting  the  tendency  of  literature  to  appeal 
more  and  more  to  the  eye,  says  of  Pater,  "  the  most  per- 
fect master  of  English  prose  now  creating  among  us," 
that  his  work  is  often  "  far  more  like  a  mosaic  than  a 
passage  in  music." 

141:  12. — the  tracts  for  the  times.  A  series  of  publi- 
cations during  the  Oxford  movement  in  which  Newman 
and  his  associates  presented  their  thoughts  in  favor  of 
a  revival  of  a  Via  Media  or  Anglo-Catholic  spirit. 

142:  15. — Gustave  Flaubert.  The  student  who  would 
like  to  balance  the  admiration  of  Pater  by  another  quality 
will  do  well  to  read  M.  Anatole  France  on  "  Les  Idees  de 
Gustave  Flaubert,"  in  La  Vie  Litter  aire,  Vol.  III. 


p.  154,1.  12]  NOTES  253 

142:  20. — its  fine  casuistries.  Art  casuistries,  of 
course,  as  in  76:  3. 

146:  3. — to   know   your   own    sense.     Cf.    2:3,  72:31, 

147:  10. — those  laborers  in  the  parable.  Matthew, 
XX.  1-16. 

148:  4. — this  discovery  of  the  word.  The  modern 
martyr,  however,  is  Sentimental  Tommy  in  Chap.  36  of 
Mr.  Barrie's  work  of  that  name. 

150:  15. — "The  style  is  the  man."  The  phrase  is 
Buffon's,  and  comes  from  his  Discours,  in  which  most  of 
the  other  ideas  are,  on  the  whole,  contrary  to  present 
ways  of  thought  or.  writing. 

152:  6.— music    .    .    .    perfect  art.    See  note  on  47:  24. 

151:  21. — Music  and  prose  literature.  This  is  one  of 
those  "  art  casuistries  "  of  which  the  beginning  of  the 
essay  on  The  School  of  Giorgione  gives  us  another,  of  which 
the  idea  is  much  the  same  as  this,  except  that  that  essay 
is  on  painting. 

153-  2. — great  art.  This  passage  stands  alone  in  all 
Pater's  work.  In  a  thousand  years,  students  will  think 
it  an  interpolation. 

154:  I. — All  true  criticism  .  .  .  what  it  was.  This 
says  over  again  what  Pater  had  already  said  in  an  earlier 
page  of  the  book  of  which  this  selection  is  a  chapter. 
"  There  are  three  different  ways,"  he  there  wrote,  "  in 
which  the  criticism  of  philosophy,  of  all  speculative 
opinion  whatever,  may  be  conducted."  The  first  two 
ways,  he  further  states  as  the  dogmatic  and  the  eclectic, 
and  goes  on:  "  Dogmatic  and  eclectic  criticism  alike 
have,  in  our  own  century,  under  the  influence  of  Hegel 
and  his  predominant  theory  of  the  ever-changing  '  Time- 
spirit,'  or  Zeit-geist,  given  way  to  a  third  method  of  criti- 
cism, the  historic  method,  which  bids  us  replace  the  doc- 
trine, or  the  system  we  are  busy  with,  or  such  an  ancient 
monument  of  philosophic  thought  as  The  Republic,  as 
far  as  possible  in  the  group  of  conditions,  intellectual, 
social,  material,  amid  which  it  was  actually  produced, 
if  we  would  really  understand  it."  Plato  and  Platonism, 
p.  4.  The  view  is  somewhat  different  from  2:2  of  the 
Preface,  which  was  written  twenty  years  earlier.  That 
was  aesthetic  criticism,  and  this  is  philosophic,  but  there 
is  more  difference  than  that  only,  a  difference  noted  in 
the  Introduction,  p.   Ivii. 

154:  12. — the  .  .  .  force  of  personality.  In  Plato, 
as  in  Pascal,  126:3-14. 


254  NOTES  [P.  154, 1.  20 

154:  20. — what  is  unique.  The  familiar  idea  of  2:33 
from  a  different  standpoint,  or,  rather,  in  a  more  logical 
Hght. 

154:  27. — The  Sophists  .  .  .  Pre-Socratic  philoso- 
phies.    These  are  the  subjects  of  the  preceding  chapters. 

156:  13. — the  chastisement,  the  control.  As  in  135: 
27. 

157-  17- — we  shall  have  a  dialogue.  The  dialogues 
of  Plato  make  into  a  literary  form  what  was  a  common 
amusement  at  Athens.  It  was  even  formalized  into  a 
well-understood  game,  the  dialogue  in  which  one  con- 
testant asked  questions  and  the  other  answered,  the  object 
being  to  cause  and  to  avoid  contradiction  and  incon- 
sistency. It  was  the  favorite  mode  of  expression  of 
Socrates  as  opposed  to  the  orations  of  the  Sophists. 
Thus  at  the  beginning  of  the  Gorgias,  Callicles  says  that 
the  famous  Sophist  has  just  been  giving  them  a  fine  dis- 
course; if  Socrates  likes,  he  will  speak  again.  Socrates 
says,  "  Thank  you,  but  would  he  mind  conversing  with 
us?  "  On  coming  to  the  company,  Chaerephon,  the 
friend  of  Socrates,  says,  "  Do  you,  Gorgias,  as  Callicles 
says,  answer  any  question  put  to  you?  "  "I  do,"  answers 
Gorgias;  "  I  have  just  offered  to  do  so,  and  I  may  add 
that  for  many  years  nobody  has  asked  me  any  new  ones." 

157:  4 — braziers*  workshops.     Cf.  162:9-11. 

157:  26. — Murillo^s  Beggar  boys.  There  are  three  of 
these  well-known  pictures  in  the  Munich  gallery.  The 
one  that  Pater  had  chiefly  in  mind  is  called  "  The  Dice 
Players,"  although  his  remark  in  11.  28,  29  shows  that  he 
was  thinking  of  "  The  Melon  Eaters  "  as  well. 

158:  5. — those  dear  skinny  grasshoppers.  Socrates 
tells  the  story  in  the  Phcedrus. 

158:  10. — the  story  of  Gyges.  It  is  in  the  beginning 
of  the  second  book  of  The  Republic. 

158:  31. — If    Plato      .      .  Dialogues.     Socrates   is 

known  to  us  from  the  accounts  of  two  of  his  followers, 
Xenophon  and  Plato,  who  give  us  ideas  not  inconsistent 
but  rather  different.  Hence  the  doubt  existing  as  to 
Socrates  in  one  or  another  of  Plato's  Dialogues;  have  we 
the  man  as  he  really  was,  or  is  the  dialogue  dramatic? 

159:  I. — the  young  Charmides.  165:7.  Cf.  the  dia- 
logue named  for  him. 

159:  2. — the  aged  Cephalus.     166:9. 

159:  27. — Corruptio  optimi  pessimal  The  corruption 
of  the  best  is  the  worst  of  all. 


p.  167, 1.  8]  N0TE6  S55 

160:  9. — The  sharp  little  .  .  .  lawyer.  I  suppose 
in  the  Thesetetus,  172,  3. 

160:  25. — the  eighth  .  ,  .  Republic.  They  are 
upon  false  forms  of  government  and  the  analogous  char- 
acters of  men. 

161:  12. — The  affectations  of  Sophists.  Whatever  the 
relative  position  of  Socrates  and  the  Sophists  in  their  own 
day,  the  latter  have  got  the  worst  of  it  by  this  time.  Even 
Grote  has  not  been  able  to  rescue  them.  The  Platonic 
presentation  of  the  Sophist  prevails,  and  Plato,  with  some 
exceptions,  did  give  them  practically  much  the  character 
here  indicated. 

161:  13. — Thrasymachus.     In  the  Euthydemus. 

162:  16. — ship  of  the  state.  As  in  The  Laws,  758,  or 
The  Statesman,  302. 

162:  17. — the  echoes  .  .  .  cavern.  This  very 
famous  illustration  is  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventh 
book  of  The  Republic,  mentioned  later  (169:  17),  and  does 
something  to  give  that  book  the  quality  there  noted. 

162:  22. — the  "dialectic"  method.  As  opposed  to 
the  rhetorical. 

162:  24. — dyers  busy  with  their  purple  stuff.  A  rem- 
iniscense  of  The  Republic,  IV,  429. 

163:  33. — after  the  manner  of  Dante.  See  69:5  and 
note. 

164:  28. — A  certain  .  .  .  art.  It  is  a  very  subtle 
mind  that  will  notice  it;  but  since  it  has  been  noticed, 
we  see  how  agreeable  it  is  to  Pater's  whole  philosophy. 

165:  9. — those  youthful  athletes.  They  and  their 
presentation  form  the  subject  of  the  later  essay  on  the 
Athletic  Prizemen. 

165:  15. — a  famous  passage  in  the  Phaedrus.  246  ff, 
especially  254. 

167:  8. — who  might  have  become  .  .  .  Sophists. 
The  fact  that  the  dialogues  of  Plato  are  what  they  are, 
that  they  have  endured,  won  and  kept  the  ear  of  the 
world,  while  the  writings  of  the  Sophists  have  perished, 
save  for  a  few  words  here  and  there — this  serves  to  iso- 
late the  idea  of  a  strong  difference  between  the  two. 
They  were  utterly  different  in  some  respects:  Plato, 
with  his  view  of  absolute  truth,  for  one  thing,  and  the 
Sophists,  with  their  various  skeptical  and  relative  ex- 
planations. Still,  we  must  remember  that  in  their  own 
day  Socrates  himself,  and  doubtless  Plato  too,  seemed  to 
the  conservative  part  of  the  world  at  large  to  be  Sophists 


256  NOTES  |P.  167,  I.  12 

themselves,  as,  in  the  larger  sense  of  professional  edu- 
cators, they  were.  Aristophanes  thinks  of  Socrates  as 
a  Sophist,  and  so  apparently  did  a  number  of  Socrates' 
jurymen. 

167:  12. — just  such  a  poet.  Artists  were  banished 
from  Plato's  city.  And  as  for  poets,  or  a  poet,  "if  he 
came  to  our  city,"  Pater  translates,  Plato  and  Platonisni, 
249,  "  with  his  works  and  poems,  wishing  to  make  an 
exhibition  of  them,  we  should  certainly  do  him  reverence 
as  an  object  sacred,  wonderful,  delightful,  but  we  should 
not  let  him  stay.  We  should  tell  him  that  there  neither 
is,  nor  may  be,  any  one  like  that  among  us,  and  so  send 
him  on  his  way  to  some  other  city,  having  anointed  his 
head  with  myrrh  and  crowned  him  with  a  garland  of 
wool,  as  something  in  himself  half-divine,  and  for  our- 
selves should  make  use  of  some  more  austere  and  less 
pleasing  sort  of  poet  for  his  practical  uses." 

167:  24. — -an  inexhaustible  interest  in  himself.  Cf. 
many  other  references  under  2:2,  note,  and  this  new  one 
to  Plato  and  Platonism,  p.  80.  "To  make  Meno,  Polus, 
Charmides,  really  interested  in  himself,  to  keep  him  to  the 
discovery  of  that  wonderful  new  world  here  at  home — 
in  this  effort,  even  more  than  in  making  them  interested 
in  other  people  and  things,  lay  and  still  lies  (it  is  no  so- 
phistical paradox!)  the  central  business  of  education." 

167:  27. — the  Eleatic  school.  The  doctrine  of  Par- 
menides  is  discussed  in  the  aecond  chapter  of  the  book. 

167:  29. — "philosophy  of  motion."  Of  Heraclitus, 
which  gave  a  motto  to  the  Conclusion.  It  was  discussed 
in  Chap.  I. 

168:  22. — And  his  style  too.  The  whole  question  of 
art,  as  noted  in  the  introduction,  p.  Iviii. 

169:  II. — the  Gorgias.  Begins  with  a  discussion  of 
rhetoric  and  turns  to  morals. 

169 :  13 . — the  Charmides.  On  temperance,  and  therefore 
like  the  art  which  creates  its  effect  by  such  simple  means. 

169:  15. — the  Timaeus.  On  natural  history;  but  I  do 
not  myself  get  the  effects  mentioned,  probably  through 
being  but  a  poor  Grecian. 

169:  16. — the  Theaetetus.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  just  what 
Pater  had  in  mind,  but  the  Thecetetus,  hke  the  seventh 
book  of  the  Republic,  carries  along  an  illustrative  figure 
by  constant  reference. 

169:  17. — the  Phaedrus.  A  very  charming  personal 
dialogue. 


p.  174, 1.  9]  NOTES  257 

169:  17. — the  seventh  book  of  the  Republic.  It  begins 
with  the  figure  of  the  cave,  which  is  in  mind  throughout, 
and,  with  other  illustration,  helps  to  give  the  concrete 
character. 

169:  30. — a  great  metaphysical  force.     Cf.  132:  13. 

170:  2. — a  vocabulary.  Cf.  with  the  passage  in  the 
essay  on  Style,  beginning  129:5. 

170:   II. — Aristotle.     At  first  a  student  of  Plato's. 

172:  9. — on  that    .     .    .    day.     The  time  of  the  Phaedo, 

173:  7- — a  gymnastic  fused  in  music.  The  two  words 
are  used  here  in  a  broader  sense  than  is  usual;  the  first 
is  but  slightly  extended  to  cover  the  whole  round  of 
physical  culture  and  development;  the  second  means  the 
round  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  culture,  whatever  art 
or  discipline  was  under  the  protection  of  the  Muses.  Of 
this  latter  training  Pater  speaks  often  in  the  course  of 
the  book:  "All  those  matters  over  which  the  Muses  of 
Greek  mythology  preside  ...  all  the  productions  in 
which  form  counts  equally  with,  or  is  more  than,  the 
matter,"  p.  243.  With  this  cf.  the  conception  of  music 
in  The  School  of  Giorgione ,  as  shown  in  the  notes  to  47:  20 
and  208:  24.  But  the  principle  of  Form  is  a  wise  and 
harmonious  restraint,  and  so  Music  stands  for  true  cul- 
ture. "  The  proper  art  of  the  Perfect  City  is,  in  fact, 
the  art  of  discipline.  Music  {fj.ov0iKrf)  all  the  various 
forms  of  fine  art  will  be  but  the  instruments  of  its  one 
over-mastering  social  or  political  purpose,"  p.  248. 

173:  26. — all  true  knowledge  .  .  .  of  a  person.  So 
with  the  knowledge  of  beauty,  as  in  the  Preface,  i:  16, 
which  must  ever  be  in  the  most  concrete  terms  possible, 
never  abstract. 

174:  I. — Platonism  has  contributed  largely.  A  novel 
idea  surely  to  very  many  whose  conception  of  Platonism 
is  of  a  sort  of  ethereal  cult  which  neglects  the  actualities 
and  leaves  them  to  be  pawed  over  by  the  Aristotelian. 

174:  9.  —  one  of  the  great  scholars  of  the  world.  A 
most  interesting  view  of  scholarship.  That  Milton  was 
a  great  scholar  as  well  as  a  great  poet  is  a  commonplace, 
nor  would  there  be  doubt  as  to  Virgil.  The  addition  of 
Raphael  (1.  19) — Pater  had  more  to  say  of  Raphael 
from  this  standpoint,  in  the  essay  in  Miscellaneous 
Studies,  see  especially  p.  26 — the  addition  gives  us 
enough  to  get  a  feeling  of  Pater's  meaning  without  his 
definition,  more  especially  if  we  put  over  against  these 
three,    Homer,    Shakespeare   and    Michael    Angelo.     Not 


258  NOTES  [P.  174, 1.  25 

merely  were  these  latter  men  of  greater  genius,  but  we  feel 
probably  that  their  genius  was  of  a  different  type.  Were 
it  a  question  of  the  value  of  scholarship  to  the  artist  only, 
we  might  feel  that  the  greatest  scholars  were  not  so  great 
as  those  who  had  little  advantage  of  "  all  that  can  be 
taught  and  learned."  But  philosophy  relies  more  on 
scholarship  than  art  does,  and  we  should  find  few  men 
of  pure  genius  to  put  over  against  the  men,  like  Plato 
here,  of  scholarship. 

174:  25. — pedestrian.  Pater  has  used  the  word  before 
in  this  sense;   128;  ^t,. 

175:  5. — in  angry  flight.     I.  e.,  in  self-exile. 

175:  10. — Dionysius  the  elder.  He  and  his  son  were  in 
turn  Tyrants  of  Syracuse.  Dio  was  a  philosopher,  but 
also  a  politician,  so  that  he,  too,  became  ruler  of  Syracuse, 
and  met  his  death  by  assassination. 

175:  12.  —  "the  philosophic  king."  The  best  exam- 
ples came  later;  Pater  thinks  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and 
St.  Louis.  In  Alarms  the  Epicurean,  the  idea  is  often 
enough  in  mind,  as  when  it  is  said  of  Marcus  Aurelius 
(Chap.  XVII)  that  "he  read  (and  often  with  self-reproach) 
in  The  Re  public  of  Plato,  those  passages  which  describe 
the  life  of  the  philosopher-kings — like  that  of  hired  serv- 
ants in  their  own  house — who,  possessed  of  the  '  gold  unde- 
filed  '  of  intellectual  vision  forgo  so  cheerfully  all  other 
riches."     For  St.  Louis,  see  Plato  and  Platonism,  239. 

175:  21. — a  somewhat  dubious  name.  Perhaps  not 
more  so  than  the  name  Lyceum. 

176:  3. — the  remaining  forty  years.  He  died  in  347 
B.  C.,  at  the  age  of  eighty. 

177. — The  Age  of  Athletic  Prizemen.  In  reading  this 
essay  the  student  should  have  access  to  a  collection  of 
casts  from  the  antique.  Failing  that,  he  will  need  some 
handbook.  There  are  a  number  of  books  on  the  subject: 
Gardner's  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture  is  very  convenient, 
and  is  chiefly  referred  to  in  the  following  notes ;  see  espe- 
cially on  athletic  sculpture  in  general,  pp.  190  ff.  I  have 
also  cited,  a  number  of  times,  Robinson's  Catalogue  of 
Casts,  Part  III,  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  to 
emphasize  the  value  of  looking  at  the  real  things  (as  near 
as  may  be)  while  reading  the  essay. 

177;  I. — It  is  pleasant  .  .  .  middle  age.  See  Denys 
I'Auxerrois  and  the  final  note  on  it.  Pater  states  the 
general  point  in  The  Renaissance,  p.  3:  "  Theories  which 
bring  into  connection  with  each  other  modes  of  thought 


p.  178, 1.  15]  NOTES  259 

and  feeling,  periods  of  taste,  forms  of  art  and  poetry, 
which  the  narrowness  of  men's  minds  constantly  tends 
to  oppose  to  each  other,  have  a  great  stimulus  for  the 
intellect,  and  are  almost  always  worth  understanding." 

177;  5. — something  attractive  ...  as  such.  Prob- 
ably because  of  the  analysis  it  compels. 

177:  7- — The  Marbles  of  JEgina.  then.  This  essay  was 
published  in  Greek  Studies,  and  came  after  an  essay  on 
the  Marbles  of  ^gina.  The  connection  of  Antiquity 
and  the  Middle  Age  is  remarked  toward  the  end  of  that 
essay;  hence  the  word  then.  "  There  too,"  he  had 
written,  speaking  of  Greek  Sculpture,  "  is  a  succession  of 
phases  through  which  the  artistic  power  and  purpose 
grew  to  maturity,  with  the  enduring  charm  of  an  uncon- 
ventional unsophisticated  freshness  in  that  very  stage  of 
it  illustrated  by  these  marbles  of  ^gina,  not  less  than  in 
the  works  of  Verroccio  and  Mino  of  Fiesole."  This  re- 
mark presumably  suggested  the  reference  in  1.  9  to  the 
warrior  tombs  of  Florence.  Verroccio  (143  5- 1488)  was 
a  Florentine  brassworker  and  sculptor,  a  pupil  of  Dona- 
tello.  Mino  da  Fiesole  (143 1- 1484)  was  also  a  sculptor, 
and  of  him  and  some  others  Symonds  writes,  "  The  charm 
of  manner  they  possess  in  common  can  hardly  be  defined 
except  by  similes.  The  innocence  of  childhood,  the 
melody  of  a  lute  or  songbird,  as  distinguished  from  the 
music  of  an  orchestra,  the  rathe  tints  of  early  dawn, 
cheerful  light  on  shallow  streams,  the  serenity  of  a  simple 
and  untainted  nature  that  has  never  known  the  world — 
many  such  images  occur  to  the  mind  while  thinking  of 
the  sculpture  of  these  men."  Renaissance,  II,  152.  He 
also  (p.  158)  notes  the  tombs  in  the  Abbey  of  Florence 
as  having  an  almost  infantine  sweetness  of  style. 

177:  10. — A  less  mature  phase.  Less  mature  even 
than  that  just  characterized. 

177:  13- — Hermes  bearing  a  ram.  Gardner  (p.  176) 
gives  a  picture  of  a  somewhat  similar  statue  of  about  the 
same  period  of  a  god  or  man  bearing  a  calf. 

177:  24. — old  Greek  influence.  Or  else  unconscious 
analogy  with  the  old  Greeks,  as  in  213:  32. 

178:  15. — Calamis.  Apparently  the  great  Athenian 
sculptor  of  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century.  He  is  said 
to  be  of  shadowy  fame  because  nothing  is  really  known 
of  him  except  what  may  be  inferred  from  some  bits  of 
art  criticism  preserved  in  Cicero,  Pliny  and  Quintilian, 
and  a  few  doubtful  attributions. 


26o  NOTES  [P.  179, 1.  I 

179:  I. — The  carved  slab     .     .     .     Orchomenus.     See 

GarUner,  p.   149,  and,  more  fully,  p.   122. 

179:  3— the  stJle  .  .  .  signed  "Aristocles."  De- 
scribed and  illustrated  in  Gardner,   p.  179. 

180:  3. — The  Harpy  Tomb.  See  Gardner,  pp.  109-110. 
The  cut  on  p.  no,  which  gives  two  sides  of  the  tomb, 
enables  one  to  follow  intelligently  the  greater  part  of  the 
description  on  the  next  page. 

181:  16. — the  whole  composition.  Here  Pater  added 
the  following  note:  "  In  some  fine  reliefs  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  Jesus  himself  draws  near  to  the  deathbed  of  his 
Mother.  The  soul  has  already  quitted  her  body,  and  is 
seated,  a  tiny  crowned  figure,  on  his  left  arm  (as  she  had 
carried  Him)  to  be  taken  to  heaven.  In  the  beautiful 
early  fourteenth  century  monument  of  Aymer  de  Valence 
at  Westminster,  the  soul  of  the  deceased,  '  a  small  figure 
wrapped  in  a  mantle,'  is  supported  by  two  angels  at  the 
head  of  the  tomb.  Among  many  similar  instances  may 
be  mentioned  the  soul  of  the  beggar,  Lazarus,  on  a  carved 
capital  at  Vezelay;  and  the  same  subject  in  a  colored 
window  at  Bourges.  The  clean,  white  little  creature 
seems  glad  to  escape  from  the  body,  tattooed  all  over 
with  its  sores  in  a  regular  pattern." 

181:  19. — the  harpy  form.  It  was  characteristic  of 
the  harpy  to  have  cruel  talons  and  a  pale,  hungry  face. 
These  figures  have  a  tenderness  of  attribute  not  at  all  in 
keeping  with  the  harpy  idea. 

183:  20. — With  something  .  .  .  hieratic  conven- 
tion. As  may  be  readily  observed  by  noting  the  hair  and 
face  of  Harmodius  as  contrasted  with  the  later  head  set 
on  the  shoulders  of  Aristogeiton.  See  the  plate  in  Gard- 
ner, p.  184. 

184:  5. — a  remarkable  pair  of  statues.  For  the  whole 
matter,  see  Gardner,  pp.   182-187. 

184:  19. — according  to  .  .  .  Herodotus.  In  V,  55; 
Thucydides,  VI,  54-56,  is  rather  fuller. 

185:   17. — flll  thftir  value.     See  the  next  page. 

185:  24. — pulvis  Olympicus.  A  reminiscence  of  the 
first  ode  of  Horace:  the  quotation  must  have  for  many 
a  reader  a  flavor  of  youth  quite  in  keeping. 

185:  25. — poetry  .  .  .  those  Odes.  Pindar  was 
somewhat  older  than  Myron,  who  is  said  to  have  been 
the  master  of  Polycleitus. 

186:  14. — The  prize  ,  .  .  value.  Read  here  the 
last  page  or  so  of  the  preface  to  Ruskin's  Crown  of  Wild  Olive. 


p.  191,1.  i6]  NOTES  261 

1S7:  21. — Diadumenus,  Discobolus,  Jason.  These  stat- 
ues form  the  subject  of  the  rest  of  the  essay. 

187:  29. — surely  what  Plato  pleads  for.  "A  gymnastic 
'  fused  in  music ; '  "  see  1 73  :  7 .  The  use  of  the  singular 
"  a  gymnastic  "  is  to  be  noted;  ethic,  aesthetic  are  some- 
times so  used  after  the  analogy  of  logic. 

188:  13. — within  the  limits  .  .  .  world.  That  is, 
it  is  beauty,  not  expression.  In  other  cases  there  may 
be  an  evasion  of  the  difficulties  (1.  22)  of  form  which  we 
condone  for  the  sake  of  the  expression  of  thought  or  feel- 
ing that  we  find.  Modern  taste  tends  more  and  more  to 
finr  what  it  deems  beauty  in  such  expressiveness,  and 
so,  perhaps,  is  less  and  less  interested  in  these  types  of 
Hellenic  empiricism. 

:88:  t,^. — the  historians  of  art.  The  earlier  Greek 
ar'  historians  are  known  to  us  chiefly  by  quotations  in 
L'c,tin  literature.  The  first  two  allusions  which  follow 
may  be  loose  reminiscences  of  Pliny's  account  (XXXIV, 
54-65,  especially  59)  of  the  development  of  sculpture 
from  Phidias  to  Lysippus,  which  is  held  to  be  taken  froim 
L  le  lost  work  on  sculpture  of  Xenocrates  of  Sikyon.  It 
is  not  a  close  reproduction,  which  is  a  matter  of  the  less 
onsequence  in  that  Xenocrates  was  very  inaccurate: 
icse  remarks  are  made  by  him  of  Pythagoras  of  Rhegion. 
i.he  mention  of  Ladas  (189:4)  refers  to  a  statue  by 
'.lyron,  which,  as  Pater  says  afterward,  was  one  of  the 
nost  famous  of  antiquity,  now  lost  except  for  its  immor- 
.ality  in  epigram. 

190:  29. — Multiplicasse  veritatem  videtur.  He  seems 
to  have  multiphed  truth,  Pliny,  XXXIV,  58.  The  mean- 
ing is  not  wholly  clear:  Pater  quotes  it  as  referring  to  his 
reproduction  of  actual  things.  Brunn  (Geschichte  der 
Griechischen  Kiinstler,  p.  151)  thinks  that  it  means  that 
Myron  showed  the  possibilities  of  many  things  up  to  his 
time  unnoticed,  and  Gardner  translates  (p.  243),  "to  attain 
variety  in  realism." 

191:  12. — his  brazen  cow.  See  Gardner,  p.  240.  The 
epigrams  may  be  found  in  Overbeck,  Schriftquellen,  550-588, 
which  means  that  there  are  thirty-nine  of  them. 

191:  16. — the  Elgin  frieze.  The  frieze  of  the  Par- 
thenon. The  greater  part  of  the  sculpture  on  the  pedi- 
ments, metopes  and  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  was  removed 
in  1 80 1  by  Lord  Elgin,  who  was  the  English  minister  in 
Constantinople,  and  sent  to   England.     The  frieze  is  in 


262  NOTES  [P.  193, 1.  14 

low  relief,  and  represents  the  Panathenaic  procession. 
The  cows  are  on  either  side  near  the  east  end. 

193:  14. — "elaborate"  or  "contorted."  "Quid  tarn 
distortum  et  elaboratum,  quam  est  ille  discobolus  Mironis?" 
Quintilian,  II,  13,  10. 

194:  14. — the  most  authentic.  The  discobolus  is 
known  only  by  copies,  as  is  the  common  case  with  Greek 
statues;  Gardner,  p.  237,  gives  the  figure  of  the  one  here 
mentioned,  which  now  goes  under  the  name  of  Lanceotti, 
from  the  palazzo  where  it  stands:  it  was  formerly  in  the 
palazzo  Massimi.  We  may  compare  Pater's  description 
of  Apollo  throwing  the  discus  in  "Apollo  in  Picardy  " 
{Miscellaneous  Studies,  143):  "On  the  moonlight  turf 
there,  crouching,  right  foot  foremost,  and  with  face  turned 
backwards  to  the  disk  in  his  right  hand,  his  whole  body, 
in  that  moment  of  rest,  full  of  the  circular  motion  he  is 
about  to  commit  to  it     .     .     ." 

194:  29. — a  certain  archaic  .  .  .  spareness.  The 
older  statues  were  almost  circular  in  a  cross-section  at 
the  waist,  which  gives  an  impression  of  slimness. 

195:  22. — some  legendary  quoit  player.  Acrisius  was 
the  father  of  Danae,  the  mother  of  Perseus.  His  death 
had  been  prophesied  at  the  hand  of  a  son  of  Danae,  and 
the  prophesy  came  true  in  spite  of  his  effort  to  outwit 
fate.  The  story  of  Apollo  and  Hyacinthus  Pater  has  told 
in  "Apollo  in  Picardy." 

195*  30- — pristae.  Pristas  is  the  word  in  Pliny, 
XXXIV,  57,  and  the  translation,  "  sawyers,"  seems  to 
be  generally  accepted,  although  Gardner,  p.  242,  note, 
says  that  "  the  interpretations  are  so  various  and  so 
plausible,  that  we  can  only  ignore  them  as  evidence  for 
his  art." 

196:  5. — pedestrian.  See  128:  33,  174:  25,  where  it  is 
used  of  prose  style, 

196:  17. — the  Museum  of  the  Capitol.  It  was  put  there 
in  1474  on  the  founding  of  the  Museum,  and  Robinson 
(Catalogue  68)  says  that  "perhaps  it  was  never  buried." 

196:  26. — the  Spinario.  One  of  the  few  bronze- statues 
of  Greek  times  which  remain,  hence  the  "  so  rare  "  of  1.  16. 

196:  22. — the  "  Wolf  of  the  Capitol."  Also  of  bronze, 
and  also,  probably,  never  buried.  It  was  known  as  early 
as  the  tenth  century. 

196:  24. — doing  duty  as  Charlemagne.  Or  as  Con- 
stantine  (Gardner,  p.  6),  which  seems  a  better  alias  for 
escaping  the  melting  pots  of  the  Dark  Ages. 


p.  200,  I.  3s]  NOTES  263 

197:  17. — "  something  of  archaism."  Robinson  (p.  69) 
says  that  the  "  combination  of  a  freely  developed  tech- 
nique with  genuine  traces  of  archaism  is  an  almost  certain 
indication  of  the  middle  of  the  [fifth]  century." 

197:  26. — the  Astragalizontes.  The  dice-players:  the 
statue  is  mentioned  by  Pliny. 

197:  28. — which    Plato    sketches.      In   the  Lysis.     Cf. 

157:  30. 

198:  2. — the  Diadumenos.  See  Gardner,  p.  330,  for 
a  cut  of  the  Vaison  copy  mentioned  below. 

198:  30. — renowned  as  a  graver.  "  In  the  art  of  fin- 
ishing a  bronze  statue  (Polycleitus)  is  said  to  have  sur- 
passed all  others,  not  excepting  Pheidias  himself."  Gard- 
ner, p.  326. 

199:  5. — the  canon.  The  Doryphorus,  or  spear  bearer. 
Gardner,  328. 

199*  13- — Polycleitus.  The  name  is  Myron  in  all  the 
editions.  But  it  should  clearly  read  as  in  the  text.  For 
the  statue  of  Here,  see  Gardner,  p.  331. 

199:  28. — The  athletic  life  .  .  .  one's  self.  The 
physical  askesis.     Cf.     6:1,  note. 

200:  I. — The  so-called  Jason.  The  name  was  given  by 
Winckelmann,  but,  as  is  remarked  in  200 :  12-22,  the  statue 
may  be  "  simply  .  .  .  of  an  athlete  tying  his  sandal." 
Robinson,  218. 

200:  I. — the  Apoxyomenus.  By  Lysippus.  See  cut  in 
Gardner,  p.  407. 

200:  7. — belong  ...  to  this  group.  These  three 
statues  are  referred  in  time  to  the  period  of  Lysippus, 
almost  a  century  after  Myron  and  Polycleitus.  ^sthet- 
ically  Pater  puts  them  with  the  earlier  statues,  for  they 
are  all  presentations  of  the  athletic  life,  the  names  Jason 
and  Aaorante  having  no  connection  with  the  statues  so 
called. 

'  206:  8. — the  Adorante.  Or  Praying  Boy.  See  Gard- 
ner, p.  414,  who  says  that  the  attitude  as  well  as  the  pro- 
portions suggest  a  more  youthful  version  of  the  Apoxy- 
omenus— that  is  to  say,  the  "uplifted  .  .  .  hands" 
and  arms  are  a  modem  addition,  so  that  the  boy  is  as 
likely  to  be  rubbing  himself  down  (really  scraping  him- 
self)  as  praying. 

200:  33. — subjects  truly  "  made  to  his  hand."  Such 
as  may  be  seen,  too,  in  our  own  college  gymnasiums,  boat 
houses  and  running  tracks.  Only  an  enthusiast  would 
add  football  fields. 


264  NOTES  [V.  201,  1.  24 

201 :  24. — another  .  .  .  Amazon.  See  Gardner, 
P-  333^  for  a  picture.  There  is  a  complicated  discussion 
on  the  various  Amazons,  in  which  one  may  become  in- 
volved by  reading  Furtwangler:  AI  aster  pieces  of  Greek 
Sculpture,  pp.   118  ff. 

202:  I. — the  Discobolus  at  Rest.  Gardner  merely 
notes  the  statue  (p.  338)  which  he  attributes  to  Nankydes, 
a  scholar  of  Polycleitus.'  Robinson,  however,  describes 
the  statue  (p.  85).  "  The  attitude  of  this  youth  is  not 
one  of  repose.  His  feet  firmly  planted,  and  the  right 
hand  raised,  he  is  preparing  to  swing  himself  into  a  pos- 
ture like  that  of  Myron's  Discobolus.  He  still  holds  the 
disk  in  his  left  hand,  from  which  he  vv'ill  pass  it  to  the 
right  before  throwing,  and  the  attitude  of  the  whole  figure 
suggests  the  muscular  laxity  which  must  precede  the 
tension  of  the  moment  represented  by  Myron." 

203 :  4. — one  of  the  sapiential,  half- Platonic  books. 
Proverbs;  the  passage  is  viii,  31. 

204. — Notre  Dame  d'Amiens.  This  essay  may  be  read 
with  Ruskin's  treatment  of  the  same  subject  in  Part  I, 
Chap.  IV,  of  Our  Fathers  Have  Taught  Us.  Pater,  intent 
always  on  the  especial  impression  made  upon  one  by  any 
work  of  art  (211 :  11),  and  desirous  of  explaining  its  char- 
acter and  individuality  by  its  origin,  is  chiefly  concerned 
with  the  church  as  a  natural  and  convenient  place  of 
worship  for  the  great  body  of  worshipers  of  a  whole  com- 
mune. Ruskin,  with  his  constant  preoccupation  for  the 
didactic  element,  takes  up  the  greater  part  of  his  essay 
on  the  church  proper,  in  an  interpretation  of  the  sym- 
bolism and  story  presented  in  the  sculptured  quatrefoils 
of  the  western  front.  Each  alludes  to  the  matter  most 
important  to  the  other.  Ruskin,  when  he  remarks  that 
among  other  things  the  object  of  the  builder  "  in  common 
with  all  the  sacred  builders  of  his  time,  was  to  admit  as 
much  light  into  the  building  as  was  consistent  with  the 
comfort  of  it  ";  Pater,  in  the  passage  on  p.  213.  The 
student  should  also  read  with  this  essay,  the  essay  that 
followed  it  on  the  monastic  church  of  Vezelay.  There 
were  to  have  been  other  essays  on  other  great  churches  of 
France,  and  we  may  well  regret  the  loss  of  them,  turning 
to  Gaston  de  Latonr,  Chap.  IT,  on  "Our  Lady's  Church  " 
at  Chartres  for  an  indication  of  what  he  could  have  written 
on  other  subjects. 

One  ought  to  have  at  hand  pictures  or  photographs  of 


p.  205, 1. 23]  NOTES  265 

the  cathedral,  and  they  are  not  very  hard  to  come  at.  If 
they  cannot  be  readily  got,  a  substitute  may  be  found  in 
the  Century  Dictionary,  which  gives  a  small  cut  of  the 
west  front,  s.  n.  medieval.  It  happens,  fortunately,  that 
many  of  the  architectural  terms  given  in  the  Century  are 
illustrated  from  Amiens,  so  the  student  will  find  a  number 
of  details  by  looking  up  the  words  amortisement ,  antic 
choir,  credence,  finial,  foil,  gallery,  quatrefoil,  quadripartite 
vault.  The  student  who  is  not  familiar  with  Gothic 
architecture  should  look  up  the  technical  terms  con- 
cerned in  the  construction:  further  cuts  illustrating 
points  of  medieval  church  architecture  alluded  to  in 
the  essay  will  be  found  in  the  Century  under  aisle,  apse, 
doorway,  nave,  pointed,  tower,  triforiuni. 

204:  3. — a  characteristic  secular  movement.  Several 
times  referred  to  by  Pater.     Cf.  5:  14  and  note. 

204:  15. — In  that  century  .  .  .  still  religious.  St. 
Francis  lived  1 182-1226,  St.  Louis  12 15-1270. 

204:  20. — the  "secular  clergy."  The  parish  clergy, 
as  opposed  to  the  "  regular  "  clergy,  the  monks  who 
lived  according  to  some  definite  "  rule,"  as  that  of  St. 
Bernard. 

205:  3. — people's  churches.  Opposed  to  the  monastic 
churches  of  which  Pater  took  Vezelay  as  a  type.  Beside 
Amiens,  the  most  famous  of  the  "  people's  churches  "  are 
the  cathedrals  of  Notre  Dame  at  Paris  and  at  Chartres. 
The  aesthetic  effects  of  this  popular  character  are  dis- 
cussed pp.  206  ff. 

205:  17. — the  old  round  arched  style.  Called,  rather 
vaguely  "  romanesque,"  or  specifically,  as  in  the  next 
line,  Norman,  Lombard,  Rhenish,  according  to  the  locality. 
The  most  obvious  mark  of  Romanesque  architecture  is 
the  round  arch,  but  the  real  characteristic  of  it  is  that  the 
wall  is  a  wall,  and  not  a  series  of  columns  with  glass  be- 
tween. Pater  puts  the  matter  in  another  way  on  the 
next  page.  Of  Romanesque  or  monastic  architecture  he 
wrote  in  the  essay  on  Vezelay. 

205:  23. — The  pointed  style.  Loosely  called  Gothic. 
The  Century  Dictionary,  s.  n.  pointed  has  a  cut  of  a  "  typi- 
cal scheme  of  a  fully  developed  French  cathedral  of  the 
thirteenth  century,"  taken  from  Viollet-le-Duc,  with  a 
statement  of  the  main  necessities  which  the  style  meets, 
namely,  spacious  and  well-lighted  interiors  and  protec- 
tion against  snow  and  rain.     The  cut  will  serve  to  give 


266  NOTES  [P.  206,  1.  18 

a  general  idea  of  the  cathedral  of  Amiens  with  some  un- 
important modifications:  (i)  Amiens  has  no  towers,  only 
a  small  spire  in  place  of  the  central  tower  and 
spire ;  (2)  it  has  the  rose-window  in  the  west 
facade  above  the  gallery  instead  of  below  it;  (3)  this 
gallery  is  a  double  one,  and  entirely  hides  the  lines  of  the 
roof  from  one  standing  in  front. 

206:  18. — ingenuity  ,  .  .  patterning.  See  the 
Century,  s.  n.  labyrinth,  the  latter  part  of  the  explanation 
of  the  word,  and  Ruskin's  essay,  $18. 

206:  32. — That  circumstance.  I.e.,  that  it  was  the 
only  church  in  Amiens. 

207:  8. — Peglise  .  .  .  excellence.  The  typical 
Gothic  church:  the  expression  is  from  Viollet-le-Duc. 

207:  13. — chevet.  The  eastern  extremity  of  the  apse 
the  point  farthest  from  the  main  door. 

207:  19. — its  glazed  triforium.  See  the  C^n/wry  unde. 
this  word,  and  also  under  bay  and  blind-story,  for  cuts  c 
unglazed  triforia. 

207:  29. — Lombard,  Rhenish,  or  Norman  derivatives. 
See  note,  205:  17. 

207:  2>Z- — hazardous.  As  in  the  Cathedral  of  Beau- 
vais  (217:  21),  which  was  to  have  been  the  most  daring 
church  in  the  world  and  had  to  be  repaired  before  it  was 
finished. 

208:   I. — flying  buttress.     See  t\ie  Century  iov  a.  cut. 

208:  24. — For  the  mere  melody.  Here,  as  in  47:  20, 
the  figure  is  something  of  a  real  comparison.  Another 
quotation  from  the  School  of  Giorgione  may  be  added : 
"  Music,  then,  and  not  poetry,  as  is  so  often  supposed 
is  the  true  type  or  measure  of  perfected  art.  Therefore, 
although  each  art  has  its  incommunicable  element,  its  un- 
translatable order  of  impressions,  its  unique  mode  of 
reaching  the  '  imaginative  reason,'  yet  the  arts  may  be 
represented  as  contintially  struggling  after  the  law  or 
principle  of  music,  to  a  condition  which  music  alone  com- 
pletely realizes." 

209:  17. — diminished.  Because  the  chapels  fill  up  the 
spaces  between  the  buttressed  columns  which  would 
otherwise  be  window. 

211:  II. — What  ...  to  me?  The  fundamental 
question,  2:4,  and  elsewhere. 

213:  II. — in  the  carving  especially.  This  sentence 
summarizes  the  subjects  of  the  carvings  on  the  west  portals 


p.  217, 1.4]  NOTES  267 

that  led  Ruskin  to  call  his  essay  on  the  cathedral  "  The 
Bible  of  Amiens."  The  double  row  of  quatrefoils  under 
the  statues  of  prophets  and  saints  will  be  observed  in  any- 
good  picture  of  the  west  fajade:  the  Century,  under 
quatrefoil,  has  a  figure  of  four,  that  gives  some  idea  of 
what  they  really  are.  The  subjects  of  these  four  are, 
perhaps,  unfortunately,  not  biblical,  but  the  Bull  and  the 
Twins  above,  and  April  and  May  beneath.  The  Central 
Porch  and  the  Madonna's  Porch  have  subjects  chiefly 
scriptural,  although  it  is  in  the  Central  Porch  that  are 
found  also  the  illustrations  of  the  moral  ideas  mentioned 
below.  The  Northern  Porch,  however,  is  more  especially 
devoted  to  "  the  lives  of  men  as  they  were  then  and  now." 
Its  saints  are  the  provincial  saints  of  Amiens  and  its 
'neighborhood:  its  quatrefoils  present  not  only  the  signs 
pi  the  zodiac  but  the  course  of  the  year;  April  is  a  man 
■feeding  a  hawk.  May  a  man  sitting  under  the  trees  listen- 
ing to  the  birds.  Ruskin  is  very  detailed  in  his  descrip- 
-Jtion  of  this  carving:  it  realized  his  desire  that  art  should 
-"be  didactic.  But  this  teaching  was  not  Pater's  kind  of 
teaching,  and  we  have,  therefore,  but  a  slight  mention 
of  it  here. 

214:  20. — the  tombs.  Ruskin,  <J23,  quotes  Viollet- 
le-Duc  "  Masterpieces  of  casting,  done  at  one  flow."  He 
speaks  in  detail  of  the  tombs  in  the  following  sections. 

215:  4. — the  marvelous  .  .  .  figures.  It  is  re- 
markable carving,  some  of  it  beautifully  simple,  some 
most  elaborate.  The  figures  occur  in  every  imaginable 
place,  sometimes  singly,  sometimes  in  decorative  com- 
bination, sometimes  in  illustration  of  biblical  scenes. 

215:  II. — the  Flamboyant  .  .  .  fire.  These  choir 
carvings  are  extremely  curious.  If  I  remember  rightly 
(having  at  hand  only  an  old  lithograph  of  a  part),  it  is 
these  enclosures  chiefly  which  preserve  for  us  the  effect 
of  the  Gothic  polychrome  of  211:  18. 

215:  33. — that  lamentable  "glory."  An  immense 
gilded  affair  of  spreading  rays  of  light,  which  insists  upon 
being  seen  from  the  very  doors. 

216:  9. — Tantum  ergo.  Two  words  of  the  hymn  sung 
while  the  eucharist  is  borne  around  the  church. 

217:  4. — The  great  western  towers  are  lost.  For 
towers  that  are  not  lost,  see  the  west  front  of  Notre  Dame 
de  Paris,     The  Century  gives  a  cut  under  "  tower." 


268  NOTES  [P.  217,  I.  7 

217:  7. — a  double  gallery     .     .     .     our  lady.     In  the 

Century,  under  "  gallery,"  is  a  cut  of  a  part  of  the  gallery 
giving  the  southern  five  of  the  eight  kings  immediately 
under  the  great  rose  window.  Under  the  word  "  niche," 
is  a  cut  which  gives  a  good  idea  of  these  statues,  although 
it  is  not  really  one  of  them,  but  a  smaller  statue  in  the 
central  pillar  of  the  central  door,  directly  under  the  Bean 
Dieu  of  213:  33. 

217:   21. — a  too  ambitious  rival,     207:  33.      Note. 

217:  22. — what  we  now  see  of  it.  There  is  only  choir 
and  transepts. 

218:  9.  — Radix  de  terra  sitienti.  Isaiah,  liii,  2.  I 
cannot  identify  the  carving.  I  should  like  to  find  it  on 
one  of  the  quatrefoils  of  the  front,  but  I  see  nothing  that 
looks  like  it,  and,  it  may  be  added,  these  carvings  are  not 
hieroglyphic,  but  within  their  limits  pleasantly  realistic. 


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